The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) in partnership with the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) and Proudly South African will host a virtual Women in Mining Dialogue under the theme “Generation Equality: Realising Women’s Rights for Equal Future”, on Thursday, 26 August 2021 from 10:00.
The dialogue will celebrate the women’s month by creating a platform for women in the mining and minerals sector to share information and engage on opportunities in the sector’s value chain and how to access them.
The programme will include presentations on opportunities in the mining sector, transformation in the mining sector, support programmes for women in small scale mining, business opportunities in mining and success stories of women who are already successful in the sector.
According to the Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Ms Nomalungelo Gina, women have an important role to play in the growth of the economy, thus it is important that women are equally recognised in order to ensure that there is transformation of the mining sector.
“Our mandate as a department includes promotion of transformation in various sectors of the economy to enable greater inclusion and growth, and empowerment of designated groups using the range of public tools such as procurement, incentives, technical support and enabling opportunities. Access to finance, gender bias, as well as lack of networking opportunities, training and education are some of the challenges that prevent women from successfully entering the mining and mineral value chain. These need to be addressed in order for women to then access opportunities in the sector,” says Gina.
She adds that most of the discussions and interventions towards transformation in the mining and mineral sector focus on issues of employment and omit the whole value chain in the sector.
“It is important to have discussions on the value chain of the mining and mineral industry as they have abundant opportunities to offer to entrepreneurs, including women and young people. These wide-range opportunities contribute to building inputs industries and providing mineral-based feedstock into the rest of the economy,” says Gina.
According to Gina, government acknowledges the importance of female entrepreneurs in the main steam economy and thus provides financial and non-financial support. She says that for women to tap into opportunities within the mining and mineral value chain, partnerships with the private sector and inclusion of community members were imperative to complement government’s efforts to support the value chain initiatives towards transformation.
To join the webinar click on the link below:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dCTQlIo5RNK00CBKoZo_gQ
Enquiries:
Bongani Lukhele – Director: Media Relations
Tel: (012) 394 1643
Mobile: 079 5083 457
WhatsApp: 074 2998 512
E-mail: BLukhele@thedtic.gov.za
Issued by: The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic)
Follow us on Twitter: @the_dti
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