"Women and the extractive industries - time for the EITI to act", 15 February 2019.

The EITI standard is an immensely powerful tool. We can make it even more powerful – and inclusive – by making it reflect the experiences of women...Members of the PWYP movement all strive for the interests of communities who are left out of vital decisions by oil, gas and mining industries...The EITI was created to establish a global standard of transparency that would allow civil society – and coalitions like ours – to make these industries more accountable to those very communities. But women are far less likely to have a voice at the EITI, while bearing an outsized share of the negative impacts from resource extraction...In 2018, PWYP initiated a pilot project in West Africa looking at gender and the EITI. Almost none of the EITI reports reviewed contained any references to gender, with only a few examples of gender disaggregation of data, but with no further analysis of its meaning...

So, what can the EITI do?...The first order of business is to ensure the data and reports produced reflect the reality of the extractives sector on the ground, in particular on employment based on gender and the gender responsiveness of budgets. Another related and immediate priority relates to the country-level ‘multi-stakeholder groups’ (MSG) prescribed by the EITI process in any country...At present, the majority of national MSGs have fewer than 25% women participation. Several have no women at all. As a fundamental first step, each stakeholder group should consider gender balance in their representation...Rio Tinto, for example, published a gender equity guide informing its work with communities. Companies that are publicly-listed in the UK – including BP, Shell and Tullow Oil – have all published pay gap analyses for the past two years...If the EITI keeps women invisible – despite the growing clamour from civil society voices around the world – it will be disavowing its own vision and standards.