Report by Magdalena Krukowska & Zuza Nazaruk

We enter the plantation of Ghana Palm Oil Development Company (GOPDC), a subsidiary of the Belgian SIAT (Société d’Investissement pour l’Agriculture Tropicale), in the Aboabo village from across a football field. Soon we bump into Nana Abbo, a retired villager arranging palm leaves on the floor. She makes brooms to sell for 2 cedis (0.15 EUR cent) and make some living. Although GOPDC has no use for palm leaves, she says that broom-making is a dangerous enterprise: “We felt that since we didn’t have jobs to do, we could go to the company, get some palm branches, make brooms and get earnings out of it. But the security guards, when we are caught, beat us or take us to prison, for just the palm branches. This makes life very unbearable.”

Nana Abbo’s story is typical of the Aboabo and Okumaning villagers, whose rights were trampled when the palm oil plantation settled in. The abuses happened despite a sophisticated certification scheme designed to prevent precisely such human rights and environmental violations. Our investigation shows how a voluntary industry standard  repeatedly fails to ensure dignified working and living conditions, underscoring the importance of the currently-negotiated EU directive on corporate due diligence. 

Why not sustainable palm oil 

GOPDC delivers certified-sustainable palm oil to European and African markets, for example,  Unilever or PZ Cussons. Palm oil’s diverse uses – from lipsticks and soap to crisps and cooking oil – made it ubiquitous in our daily life. 

GOPDC’s parent company SIAT joined Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2004 as one of the first members. GOPDC was the first in West Africa to be RSPO-certified in 2015, and SIAT repeatedly expresses the ambition to promote the certification in the region. SIAT is part of several RSPO working groups tasked with, for example, deciding on national interpretations of the RSPO standards in Ghana and Nigeria or promoting the consumption of certified palm oil. The company’s previous Deputy Managing Director, Gert Vandersmissen, sat on the RSPO Executive Board representing “Rest of the World”. The company’s section on the RSPO website states that SIAT wants “to be ahead of the other producers in Africa and be an example so that others are convinced to join the RSPO as well”.

The RSPO certifications came to SIAT despite multiple cases of abuse in the company’s compensating of indigenous communities for their land and employing workers, some of which go back decades. 

The European Commission deemed voluntary, industry-driven certifications – such as the RSPO – inefficient in preventing environmental and human rights abuses and in 2022 proposed the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. The directive’s original proposal envisioned that companies screen their full supply chains to improve their respect for human and environmental rights. During the lobbying process, business representatives have worked to convince Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and European Commission officials that voluntary industry standards are enough to mitigate risks of violations. The present version of the Directive’s proposal, to be negotiated this summer, obliges companies to take much more robust steps to mitigate any risks identified during due diligence. This may include developing and implementing policies and procedures to address identified risks, as well as engaging with suppliers to address issues if they arise. 

Giuseppe Cioffo, a Corporate Regulation and Extractives Officer at development NGO CIDSE, explains, “The law would have obliged SIAT to prevent abuses by its subsidiaries, including by consulting communities and respecting the rights of Indigenous people. If a strong civil liability regime was implemented, it would allow communities to hold responsible the parent company in Belgium for the abuses committed by its subsidiaries abroad. It would allow communities to seek justice where the headquarters of SIAT are located. Importantly, it would also lift barriers to accessing justice in such cases – including removing monetary fees and language barriers. In short, the SIAT Group would not be able to dismiss its responsibilities with regards to the actions of its subsidiaries.”

As the story of SIAT’s supposedly sustainable plantation in the Eastern region of Ghana shows, it is about time.

No other choice than precarious labour 

Before 2004, Abbo and other villagers grew food and cash crops on the land of a failed large-scale government plantation*, which they reclaimed per customary land rights. They recall that they could feed their families and sell extra produce at the local market. When GOPDC came to survey their land, the villagers opposed the establishment of a palm oil plantation but were met with brutal opposition.

“SIAT came with the regional minister, the inspectors of police, even the chief of the community, to forcefully eject us from our land and take us to prison,” Laryea Isaac, who got imprisoned and lost his land then, states. When the opposing villagers came back from imprisonment, “every property they had on the land was destroyed and SIAT was in the process of establishing palm,” Isaac adds. In 2004, GOPDC took around 12 000 hectares. 

Villagers were entitled to compensation for their lost assets but what they received was largely inadequate. Some never received anything. Those that did claim that the compensation was not based on a third-party valuation of their losses. 

Then, in 2010, the company extended its plantation by another 3000 hectares, again without offering adequate compensation. 

SIAT claims to assist “communities with education and social infrastructure development such as roads, potable water, electricity and dispensaries.” Despite promises of development, the palm oil plantation impoverished the villagers from Aboabo and Okumaning estates. Without their farmland, the villagers are forced to buy daily staples which they could grow before: “We do not have food to eat because we grow nothing apart from palm oil,” Daniel**, who currently works for GOPDC, states. 

Increased food prices mixed with decreasing employment opportunities pushed many villagers into working for GOPDC. “They took our land away and we ended up working for them,” Emmanuel Obeng, who lost his lucrative citrus trees in 2004, states bitterly. Obeng moved on to other work but many villagers continue working for GOPDC, where working conditions are dubious. 

During our visit in 2023, Daniel told us that he does “very hard work for minimal wages”. He could not disclose his wage, but Wisdom Koffi Adjawlo, director of the NGO Youth Volunteers for Environment Ghana, who has been monitoring the case, stated the compensation at 500 cedis (39 EUR) per month. The minimum monthly wage in the country is 400 cedis but already in 2018, the living wage was estimated at 900 cedis. 

Even this small wage is highly precarious. Adjawlo and Daniel disclosed that the company offers only temporary contracts to plantation workers. By not hiring permanent employees, GOPDC avoids paying for health insurance. Caring for oil palms is hard physical work with risks of physical injuries such as cuts or strains. If an accident occurs, the workers have to take care of their health on their own, and the company can refuse to reinstate them after their leave. Additionally, GOPDC does not offer appropriate protective equipment. The workers get one set every year, regardless of wear and tear, and must bear any costs of fixing it. Those tasked with spraying the plantation with chemicals feel this failing particularly acutely. 

RSPO certification despite abuses and court cases

GOPDC received its first RSPO certification in 2015 from the certification body TÜV Rheinland Indonesia. The way RSPO works is that certification bodies conduct a main audit to determine whether a company is fit to receive the certification. The certificate is valid for five years, with yearly audits and updates from the company.

According to RSPO spokesperson Kimasha Williams, “Unless investigations conclude otherwise, a member is not held in violation of the RSPO’s Standards for growers, the Principle and Criteria (P&C).”

In an email exchange, TÜV Rheinland stated that it conducted onsite audits at GOPDC between 2014 and 2020 according to RSPO guidelines. “The result of the audits was that the company met the requirements during the mentioned period,” the certification body’s spokesperson stated. 

In 2021, GOPDC got re-certified for another five years but with a different certification body: SCS Global. The certification body refused to speak to us, citing the “confidential nature” of their work (They did not have the same constraint while responding to Milieudefensie’s closer look at their certification practices).

During several audits by two certification bodies, there were at least three open court cases against GOPDC, which did not deter the company from receiving RSPO certification. In 2015 and 2017, five villagers from Aboabo demanded that the GOPDC pays them due compensation for their lost crops and lands. In 2021 – the year of the renewed RSPO certificate – the court ruled that GOPDC has to compensate the farmers based on the valuation of crops, lands, and nurseries conducted by the government body Land Valuation Board of Lands Commission. 

In its 2021 commitment to RSPO certification, SIAT states that it has “mechanisms in place to ensure (…) No existence of conflicts or disputes occurs that are not under resolution through a mutually agreed process.” Yet, its Ghanaian subsidiary continues to stall the court orders. In 2021, the company filed a motion to set aside the order for the Land Valuation Board to assess the crops. The court described GOPDC’s opposition as “way out of line” and “an abuse of the court system.” It stated: “The court sees the arguments of GOPDC in these two application [sic] as an attempt to frustrate a legitimate order made by this court.” The judge dismissed the motion and ordered GOPDC to pay both the compensation and legal costs. 

GOPDC now brought the case to the higher instance, the national court, where it awaits the decision. The plaintiffs still do not know when the court proceedings will resume. 

RSPO has its own complaint system. Yet, the Aboabo community is unaware of it. Diana Kyeremateng from the NGO Youth Volunteers for Environment Ghana highlighted that the community needs a person familiar with the certification to help them navigate the system. 

In an email exchange, RSPO spokesperson Williams suggested that “the certification process was not clear” to us, adding that “indeed it does take some time to understand”. If journalists who spend months on research supposedly cannot comprehend the certification process, one is left to wonder how affected communities or end consumers are supposed to get it. Subsequently, Williams informed us that there are currently no open complaint cases against GOPDC. 

The certification body TÜV Rheinland and consultant NGO ProForest noticed several of GOPDC’s abuses as far back as 2014. Then, ProForest described “major concerns over delay in payment” to people evicted from their farmland.

The NGO, however, only consults, and the final decision on certification is left up to the certification body. TÜV Rheinland also noticed several violations of the RSPO principles. In its 2017 surveillance report on GOPDC, the certification body describes an inadequate bonus system, a lack of facilities for protective equipment, and a failure to respect the company’s own medical insurance policy. 

According to the certification body, SIAT, and RSPO, all those issues were fixed in the following years. Yet, as our visit has shown, the problems still prevail in 2023 – and to such an extent that last year, the villagers’ struggle reached Brussels. A coalition of local NGOs from Ghana, the Ivory Coast, and Nigeria, all affected by abuses from SIAT’s subsidiaries, visited SIAT’s headquarters and the European Parliament to bring attention to their case. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive was an impetus for their visit, as it gave them hope that multinational corporations’ impunity in the Global South is coming to an end. “The [corporate sustainability] due diligence directive is a very good stand that countries, communities, and NGOs, could use to address the legality of possessing our land by the foreign company which only farms for export, not for the good of our communities,” Adjawlo, who represented Ghanaian communities, said.

The coalition met with SIAT’s CEO, Jan van Eykeren, who promised to meet the affected communities. Although the schedule was ready, the meeting did not take place. “We feel fooled once again,” Adjawlo shared.

The year of their Brussels visit, the three-country coalition also issued a statement in which they announced their boycott of the RSPO. 

Enforcement issues 

RSPO established “a definition of sustainable palm oil,” states Peter Oosterveer, a professor specializing in food systems at the University of Wageningen. “There’s a reference point. Before that, no one had a definition of sustainable palm oil. That’s an important step.” Yet, many issues stand in the way of ensuring real sustainability on the plantations. Difficulty in monitoring, the complexity of land rights, and conflict of interest due to financial dependency are the most important ones. 

While the RSPO standards may be applause-worthy, their implementation is often dubious: “Much depends on monitoring and control, and that’s often problematic,” Oosterveer states. NGOs have been highly critical of RSPO’s audit system. Danielle van Oijen from Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands) calls the auditing a “check-the-box exercise”: “The auditors look at the company’s policies and then they have a few days of going inside the plantation.” Besides, auditors usually do not come from the region they are surveying. The first RSPO certificate for GOPDC was issued in Indonesia, while the second was agreed in the United States. “How, as a foreigner, who doesn’t even speak the language or know the local context, do you assess in a few hours if what the company says in the policies is true and happens in the plantations?,” van Oijen asks. 

TÜV Rheinland claims that they interviewed many stakeholders, including over 100 GOPDC employees and their family members, and visited at least two villages per audit. The villagers and Wisdom Koffi Adjawlo claim that at least 21 communities were affected by GOPDC’s actions. The rate of visiting two villages per audit for five years did not allow the certification body to visit even half of the affected communities.  

Nana Abbo, a retired villager beaten up for collecting GOPDC’s leftovers, did not make it into any audit reports. 

Additionally, customary land rights in West Africa are often not documented, which makes it a complex task to decipher property claims. Multiple NGOs, such as GRAIN and Friends of the Earth, point out that communities are often informed of the land lease agreement after it has already been concluded between the company and the government. The delay renders the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) principle unfulfillable. “Land conflicts are complex,” van Oijen highlights. “It’s just not possible to make a full assessment during an audit.” 

Finally, there is an inherent conflict of interest if companies pay certification bodies. According to Williams, having certification bodies with an “independent and third-party” relationship to RSPO do audits on the ground is a way to “ensure transparency and avoid conflict of interest.” Yet, this dependency can work the other way round: “If certification bodies are too harsh and do not give the certificate, they will not be hired anymore. A plantation company can shift to another certification body. This is a big problem in voluntary certification schemes,” van Oijen highlights. 

The issue is not restricted to RSPO but is endemic among voluntary certification schemes. RSPO’s sole accreditation body, Assurance Services International, which accredits companies like TÜV Rheinland or SCS Global to audit and give certifications, was recently named in an investigation on how FSC paper labels do not prevent deforestation. SCS Global was called out for certifying plantations with human rights abuses across West Africa. 

All this evidence circles back to why the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive came about – voluntary schemes do not ensure that no human rights violations take place. According to Van Oijen, “The industrial palm oil sector just has too many structural issues with labour, environment – like pollution and deforestation – and also with land rights. These structural issues are not solved by any certification scheme.”

Adjawlo puts it more bluntly: “RSPO is a protective body to legalize what the companies are doing. If you look at the criteria on which RSPO is based to license palm oil companies, you realize that they don’t take into consideration the human rights aspect. If they did, what happened here in Ghana, what is happening in Nigeria, cannot be happening. And RSPO goes ahead to certify these bodies.”

MEPs managed to push away lobbying in the de-forestation directive, where tire companies tried to exclude the rubber sector. SIAT has rubber plantations in the Ivory Coast and Cambodia and its clients were part of the lobbying effort. It seems that the MEPs will manage also with CSDDD and not allow for voluntary certifications to suffice instead of actual, long-awaited and belated, due diligence by the companies themselves. 

As GOPDC keeps on stalling the compensation, the directive may be decisive in changing the fate of the Aboabo community. Otherwise, many villagers remain stuck despite keeping up their fight. GOPDC worker Daniel explained that he is a car mechanic who doubles as a driver. Yet, without money, he cannot move to a different town to work, renew his license, or buy a car. “My hands are tied. I can only work with the company here to make ends meet,” he shares.

*Infobox  – see below

**Name changed for security reasons

SIAT withdrew comments on the article, citing partial contextualisation and referring us to official documents. The company claims to have a publicly available policy covering its commitment to FPIC but it is nowhere to be found. Similar to GOPDC’s land tenure agreement, which, according to the company website, is available upon request. We have asked for it on six different occasions over the span of 2.5 months, from GOPDC’s Office Manager Augustine Owosu-Sarpong and SIAT’s Chief Business Development Officer Mano Demeure, but we never received it.  

The production of this investigation is supported by a grant from the IJ4EU fund. The International Press Institute (IPI), the European Journalism Centre (EJC) and any other partners in the IJ4EU fund are not responsible for the content published and any use made out of it. 

Infobox text

How did large-scale palm oil plantations appear in Africa? 

The recent resurgence of industrial palm oil plantations in Africa stems from brutal history. Most of the recent projects involve old concessions with long-simmering land conflicts. 

Today, the expansion of industrial oil palm plantations in Africa is dominated by a handful of large, multinational companies. Just five companies control about three-quarters of the planted, industrial oil palm plantation area on the continent. The two most important are SOCFIN of Luxembourg and SIAT of Belgium, which control a quarter of all the large oil palm plantations on the continent.

Both of these companies built their plantation empires upon the ruins of a World Bank programme to construct oil palm and rubber plantations across several countries in West and Central Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. That programme was carried out in close collaboration with SOCFIN’s consulting firm, SOCFINCO. 

The person leading SOCFINCO’s operations in Nigeria was the founder of SIAT, Pierre Vandebeeck. From 1974 to the end of the 1980s, SOCFINCO crafted master plans for at least 7 World Bank-backed oil palm projects in 5 different states. Each project envisioned creating a para-statal company to take over the state’s existing plantations and develop new ones, as well as palm oil mills. 

As the parastatal companies claimed to act in the national interest, the palm oil companies could be sure that government will use decrees and military force, where necessary, to uproot people out of lands considered suitable for oil palm cultivation. The African governments also used public money to pay for this expansion, by way of loans from the World Bank. In Ghana, the government forcibly acquired the community land in the 1970s for its palm oil ambitions.

Then, in the 1990s, with the state plantation companies deep in debt, the World Bank pushed for privatisation. Vandebeeck established his own company, Siat Group (Société d’Investissement pour l’Agriculture Tropicale) in 1991 which gradually took over formerly state-owned companies in Nigeria, Ghana, Gabon and Ivory Coast. Today, SIAT’s subsidiaries own almost 47 000 hectares of palm plantations and over 5300 rubber plantations in Africa as well as it operates a 2700-ha rubber plantation in Cambodia.

However, many of the oil palm plantation projects that were announced over the past decade have failed, mainly because of the resistance of local communities that have been threatened by displacement and losing their source of income. As the report of The Alliance against industrial plantations in West and Central Africa shows, only 220 608 hectares have been developed into industrial oil palm plantations or replanted over the past decade. 

The reason for the failure of some investments is that many of the projects were led by companies with little or no previous experience with large-scale agriculture. Some of these companies simply wanted to profit from the rush for farmland in Africa, and most were interested in securing leases or concessions over large areas of land that they could then sell to another company after making minor investments in operations or no investments at all. 

Recent years have shown that industrial oil palm plantations are an ineffective mode of corporate agriculture. Despite considerable financial support from governments, financial institutions, or private donors, big palm oil companies only account for 10% of total harvested area of oil palms in Africa. Most of the palm oil sold in Africa comes from Malaysia and Indonesia. This cheap, low-quality palm oil undercuts the local markets for the higher-quality traditional palm oil supplied by small-scale producers.

Authors’ bios

Magdalena Krukowska (Belgium/Poland) – since 15 ys cooperating with Forbes magazine, professor of sustainability and journalism, author of the film reportages “Mantra of Bhutan”, “Shule Bora”, “War for the minerals of war”, broadcasted, among others in VOD.pl, TVN24, forbes.pl, and of the documentary „New City” about the land grabbing in the Philippines.

Follow her on Twitter    Find here on Lindkedin

Zuza Nazaruk (Netherlands/Poland) – Rotterdam-based journalist covering climate & environment. Current BIRN Fellow for Journalistic Excellence, a fellow with Civil Forum on Asset Recovery, and with International Journalists’ Programme. Her multimedia reporting appeared in Euronews Green, Unbias the News, DutchNews, Vers Beton, Kyiv Post, Gazeta Wyborcza, ENTR (France24), Equal Times, and more, in seven languages. 

Follow her on Twitter    Find her on LinkedIn

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This year-long initiative seeks to influence policy decisions at the highest level of governance in Ghana and across the sub-region and will be a combination of virtual meetings and physical summits.

The theme for the maiden edition is; ‘’Navigating some critical sectors in 2021’ with guests sharing their expectations for the new year.

Co-founder of iWatch Africa, Gideon Sarpong believes that the dialogue series, “will be an important vehicle for talking through critical issues facing the region and finding areas of convergence for development.”

“I expect that these dialogue series would be an immersive experience with an end goal of designing practical blueprints across several domains for sustainable development,” he added.

The launch will be a virtual session and it is open to the public:

iWatch Africa is inviting you to the launch of its Policy Dialogue Series.

Topic: Navigating some critical sectors in 2021

Time: Saturday, January 16, 2021 02:00 PM GMT

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89608831830?pwd=N3p2TVlYV0k0cW90TDBkQ3YwZ0JEUT09

Meeting ID: 896 0883 1830

Passcode: 257197

Source: iWatch Africa | Follow @iwatchafrica

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Ayishatu, who is currently on admission at the Walewale Government Hospital, was attacked by some young men in Tataligu after a supposed oracle declared that the woman was responsible for the recent death of a young man in the community.

Thousands of women and their children in northern Ghana have been left homeless after being accused of witchcraft, according to a 2018 report by the U.S. State Department. The report indicates that there are more than six witch camps spread throughout the northern region, holding 2,000-2,500 adult women and 1,000-1,200 children.

According to the son of the victim, Abubakari Abdallah, “he was at the farm when a call came that his mother was on the verge of dying.”

“I quickly ran home to intervene but was also nearly attacked by the angry mob, so i left and called friends from Walewale who came with a car to send my mother to Walewale Government Hospital where she is currently on admission,” Abubakari told iWatch’s Mohammed Fuseini.

There is a widespread belief in witchcraft in the West African nation, according to 2019 Gallup surveys, despite 96% of the population declaring themselves to be active worshipers in one of several world religions. The belief in the phenomenon has devastating consequences. Elderly women believed to be witches are often persecuted, ousted from their homes or even murdered. Their children are also cursed and not allowed to go back home after they have grown.

Though both men and women can be accused of witchcraft, the vast majority are women. Men are considered to have a strong socio-political base and are therefore better able to successfully contest the accusations leveled against them, experts say.

A 2019 report by The Guardian showed that as women age in rural Ghana, signs of dementia, mental health issues or even menopausal symptoms can result in them being declared ‘witches’ and pushed out of their community.

Read Also: Police shoot 15-year old for flouting COVID-19 restrictions

Many elderly women in northern Ghana have fled their homes to live in so-called witch camps. The government and local community leaders have so far failed to take the necessary action to prevent this practice of abuse which is still widespread in Northern Ghana.

Report by iWatch’s Northern Region Correspondent Mohammed Fuseini | Writing and Editing Gideon Sarpong.

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The project, “Leveraging the power of data and digital tools to Stop Human Rights Abuse – An iWatch, CHRAJ and Police Collaboration”, will train and empower journalists and student journalists with these data and digital tools to find and report on cases involving human rights abuses and corruption.

The goal is to support CHRAJ and the Police to use these effective communication tools to educate the public and report more about these topical issues, for them to take real action to resolve the reported cases.

When iWatch Africa paid a courtesy call on the Commission last Tuesday, the CHRAJ Commissioner, Joseph Whittal praised iWatch’s initiative and creativity to bring human rights issues to life and expressed support for the project: “We are happy to partner this initiative as it sinks well with our mandate and efforts to bring human rights abuse issues to fore. This connects perfectly with our efforts which is captured in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”.

The Project Lead for iWatch Africa, Nana Boakye-Yiadom was optimistic about the future and the impact of the project which is being funded by the American Embassy Ghana: “The Police administration has also agreed to partner us on this all-important project. This underscores the commitment of these two very important institutions to deal with these critical fundamental issues of human existence”.

The project will officially be launched on 22^nd October 2019 at the University of Ghana campus.

Released by Communications Director , Philip Kwasi Banini

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But we need to translate this understanding into action and ensure that governments — and the private sector — do more to make this happen.

The fact remains that despite encouraging results in some countries, there is no economy today where women are on the same economic footing as men. In trade, even less so.

One way to help rebalance inequality is through procuring from women-owned businesses.

Welcoming female entrepreneurs

For these women-owned businesses  — which make up more than 40% of the world’s micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) — trading across borders has its particular challenges. The same is true for winning procurement contracts, which is even harder.

Only 1% of government procurement tenders are won by women

That winning procurement contracts is more challenging for women should come as no surprise: women entrepreneurs are at a disadvantage in many aspects of local and international trade.

They face unequal access to finance, skills, land and support networks. And evidence by surveys carried out by the International Trade Centre (ITC), suggests that women frequently encounter gender-specific barriers when dealing with trade-related paperwork, including public-procurement tenders.

Extreme gender imbalances

In 2015, ITC launched the SheTrades Initiative, which aims to connect 3 million women entrepreneurs and women-owned businesses to international markets by 2021.

The initiative sets out seven areas for intervention that need particular attention if we are to unlock more opportunities for women to trade. One of these areas is procurement.

Procurement, in this sense, refers to both government purchases and private-sector sourcing. In most economies, government procurement accounts for between 10% and 25% of GDP.

In some developing countries, this figure can even reach up to 40%.

What is clear is that public and private private-sector procurement together account for a very sizeable percentage of global economic output.

Still, according to a joint study done by ITC and Chatham House on gender and procurement, globally, only 1% of government procurement tenders are won by women.

As a result, women-owned businesses lose out on the potential that these procurement contracts can offer: growing their business, building scale and innovation and entering new value chains.

Changing business as usual 

So why is it that there is such a low rate of women winning public and private procurement contracts?

In many ways, it boils down to gender-specific challenges that stem from the confluence of underlying socio-economic and cultural factors that affect how women-owned businesses operate.

Women-owned businesses lack access to finance compared to their male-owned competitors, which places women-owned businesses at a disadvantage with respect to bidding and compliance costs as well as the ability to absorb the impact of delayed payments.

Women-owned businesses are less present in the “high economic impact” sectors that grab the lion’s share of procurement contracts, such as construction, transportation, warehousing, manufacturing and wholesale trade.

In fact, in some developed economies, the share of MSMEs owned by women ranges from only 3% to 18% in these sectors.

In developing countries, women-owned businesses face additional obstacles in bidding for contracts. For example, to demonstrate eligibility, they must be able to demonstrate technical competence, financial resources, equipment and other physical facilities (to be held as collateral), managerial capability, experience, and personnel that are often certified by responsible national agencies. Women-owned businesses are often at a disadvantage because they are typically smaller than their male-owned competitors, with less experience and fewer resources to draw upon.

The bidding process itself is quite cumbersome and difficult to navigate. In both the public and private sector, tender information is not easily accessible, requirements and skills qualifications are unclear, and a significant financial burden is often placed on bidders.

In addition, companies and government agencies often rely on established channels to identify new suppliers or sales representatives. If in the past these have been dominated by male-owned businesses, the future is likely to be similar.

Opening the door to women

So what can be done to enable women-owned companies to win more procurement contracts?

It will require a concerted effort and collaboration between public and private sector actors, and, above all, political will.

This is not just about creating more opportunities for women: it is about creating societies that are equal, fairer, and to ensure a future that is more economically inclusive

It is also fundamental to have a clearer understanding of the definition of a women-owned business to be able to collect sex-disaggregated data on women’s participation in procurement. This will inform the requirements of suppliers to meet the needs of buyers, and can help in the creation of certification and registration programmes developed to pre-qualify contractors.

This can help to create an enabling policy environment that facilitates opportunities including preferential schemes, specific provisions, and subcontracting plans that benefit women-owned businesses.

Small steps 

But let’s also keep in mind that, to date, only 17 countries have specific legislation on women-owned businesses in their procurement policies. For these to work, governments need to clearly communicate information on source selection, contract awards, and tender sizes.

Increasing the number of countries that have clear legislation supporting procuring from women-owned businesses is an important political signal to send.

Simple efforts by government and larger enterprises, for example, such as actively seeking out women-owned suppliers, can make a huge difference.

It would lead to more women-owned companies winning tenders — and also increase women representation in procurement and value chains.

We have a long way to go, but we are on the right track. In 2016, the United States for the first time reached its target of awarding 5% of federal procurement to women-owned businesses.

That might not sound like a lot, but it is an important step forward.

Read Also: Nearly 40% of the world’s girls and women live in countries failing on gender equality

Not just a women’s issue

At ITC we have created a series of offerings related to public procurement, many of which are targeting women-owned business in particular. These include best practices and guidelines such as Empowering Women through Public Procurement and Procurement Map, a database that details information on over 150,000 tenders daily and specifies opportunities for women-owned businesses and legislation on women and procurement.

Through the SME Trade Academy, we provide e-learning courses on strategies and solutions that help public procurement officers to create opportunities for women-owned businesses.

Currently we are in the process of developing a new policy tool — the SheTrades Outlook — through which we are collecting and analyzing sex-disaggregated data that will help us better monitor and improve how countries support women to trade, including through procurement.

To improve the ability of women-owned businesses to win more procurement contracts and overcome the frankly dismal current rate of 1%,  it is crucial to increase joint efforts and taking action.

And let’s keep in mind that this is not just about creating more opportunities for women: it is about creating societies that are equal, fairer, and to ensure a future that is more economically inclusive.

This opinion article was written by Arancha González, Executive Director of the International Trade Centre.

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“The ability to earn and control cash represents more than just earnings—it influences a woman’s ability to make strategic life choices,” said Stephanie Psaki, PhD, deputy director of the Population Council’s Girl Center. “This is one of the first studies to show consistently across so many countries and settings that having a child early can impact future earning potential.”

Drawing from nationally representative Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data in 43 low- and middle-income countries, representing more than 600 million women, the analysis found that:

1. Childbearing before age 18 is widespread. Despite global declines in the rates of adolescent childbearing in the last 25 years, the study found that it remains common in many low- and middle-income countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa where in nearly a dozen countries at least 30 percent of women have a child before age 18.

1. Women who have a child before age 18 are less likely to earn cash for their work throughout their lives. More specifically, women (ages 20–24) who have a child before age 18 are more likely to be employed in the short term; however, they are less likely to earn cash in the short-term and throughout their reproductive lives.

1. Most women work, but whether they are paid for their work differs. In many countries, women do not have control over their own earnings. In the majority of countries studied, most women work; however, whether they are paid for their work or not varies widely, as does their ability to control their earnings. In Togo, for example, among married and cohabiting women, most work (86 percent), earn cash (62 percent) and retain control of their earnings (57 percent). In contrast, the vast majority of married and cohabitating women in Burundi work (94 percent), but just 16 percent earn cash and 4 percent retain sole control over their earnings. (plumascounty.org)

“The study examines complex issues, but the implications are simple—in order to move the needle on gender equality, women need to be able to control their own fertility and their own earnings,” said Katja Iversen, President/CEO of Women Deliver. “We need societal investment in access to modern contraception, safe abortion, and comprehensive sexuality education, as well as in expanding economic opportunities for all girls and women.”

Read Also: Fact-check: President Akufo-Addo’s claim that women make up 30 percent of his cabinet is false

The analysis used the newest available DHS data (2012–2018) from 43 countries and included all women ages 20–49, allowing for nationally representative findings that are comparable across countries and over time. Few studies have considered the short- and long-term effects that a birth before age 18 have on women’s earning potential.

“The study confirms that early life events can shape the trajectory of a young woman’s life,” said Julia Bunting, OBE, president, Population Council. “Policymakers need to invest in better understanding the tradeoffs girls and women face and prioritize actions that will ensure girls and women have a full range of life options.”

By Gideon Sarpong | 
Follow @gideonsarpong

  | iWatch Africa

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President Akufo-Addo during his presentation argued that his cabinet is made up of 30 percent women reiterating his commitment to promoting gender-equality in Ghana.

iWatch Africa checks revealed that out of his nineteen (19) Cabinet Ministers, only five (5) of them are women, which represents 26% of Cabinet, and not 30% as the president claimed.

The president also said he is yet to see “enough dynamism” in gender activism by Ghanaian women, a comment which received some heavy backlash from activists all over the world.

“We are not seeing enough dynamism and activism on the part of those who are seeking. I am talking about dynamism where it matters…electing people to parliament, controlling political parties because they are the instruments by which our societies make decisions.

“We are talking about decisions, not wishes and hopes, we are talking about decisions that are going to make the difference,” the President said.

The comments attracted heavy criticisms from some leading activists in Ghana despite the open challenge that was given the president by Dr Alaa Murabit, the UN’s High Commissioner on Health Employment and Economic Growth at the conference.

A prominent gender activist and former Gender Minister, Oye Lithur said the President’s comments “made her cry” as a Ghanaian woman.

Read Also: Nearly 40% of the world’s girls and women live in countries failing on gender equality

“President Akufo-Addo made me cry, I cried when I watched the video. To have a human rights lawyer speak and address gender issues in the way he addressed, very regrettable. He couldn’t even get his data right. Even the representation of women in his cabinet, he couldn’t get that right,” she stated.

Below is a list of Akufo-Addo’s Cabinet Ministers (Source: Ministry of Information)

M/F	Portfolio	Incumbent	Term
	Ministry of Trade and Industry	Alan Kyeremanten	2017 –
	Ministry of Finance	Ken Ofori-Atta	2017 –
	Ministry of Defence	Dominic Nitiwul	2017 –
	Ministry of The Interior	Ambrose Dery	2017 –
	Ministry of Energy	Mr John-Peter Amewu	2018 –
F	Office of Attorney General and Ministry of Justice	Gloria Akuffo	2017 –
F	Ministry of Foreign Affairs	Shirley Ayorkor Botchway	2017 –
	Ministry of Food and Agriculture	Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto	2017 –
	Ministry of Education	Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh	2017 –
	Ministry of Health	Kwaku Agyemang-Manu	2017 –
	Minister of Monitoring and Evaluation	Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei	2017 –
	Ministry of Regional Reorganization and Development	Dan Kweku Botwe	2017 –
	Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources	Kweku Asomah Cheremeh	2018 –
	Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources	Joseph Kofi Adda	2017 –
	Ministry of Railway Development	Joe Ghartey	2017 –
	Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations	Ignatius Bafuor Awuah	2017 –
	Ministry of Transport	Kweku Ofori Asiamah	2017 –
F	Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture	Barbara Oteng Gyasi	2019 –
F	Ministry of Special Development Initiative	Mavis Hawa Koomson	2017 –
F	Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development (Ghana)	Elizabeth Afoley Quaye	2017 –

By Gideon Sarpong | Follow @gideonsarpong | iWatch Africa

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The SDG Gender Index, launched at the Women Deliver 2019 Conference, is the most comprehensive tool available to measure the state of gender equality aligned to the SDGs. The index, covering 14 of the 17 SDGs, measures countries on 51 issues ranging from health, gender-based violence, climate change, decent work and others.

The global average score of the 129 countries—which represents 95% of the world’s girls and women— is 65.7 out of 100 (“poor” in the index scoring system). No one country is the world’s best performer—or even among the world’s top ten performers—across all goals or all issues.

In 2015, world leaders from all countries committed to achieve gender equality by 2030 for every girl and every woman when they signed on to the ambitious goals and targets of the SDGs.

Overall, the world is furthest behind on gender equality issues related to public finance and better gender data (SDG 17), climate change (SDG 13), gender equality in industry and innovation (SDG 9) and – worryingly – the standalone ‘gender equality’ goal (SDG 5).

Denmark tops the index, followed closely by Finland, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands. The countries with the lowest scores in the index – Niger, Yemen, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Chad – have all faced conflict and fragility in recent years.

“With just 11 years to go, our index finds that not a single one of the 129 countries is fully transforming their laws, policies or public budget decisions on the scale needed to reach gender equality by 2030. We are failing to deliver on the promises of gender equality for literally billions of girls and women,” said Alison Holder, Director of Equal Measures 2030.

“This report should serve as a wakeup call to the world. We won’t meet the SDGs with 40% of girls and women living in countries that are failing on gender equality,” said Melinda Gates, Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “But the SDG Gender Index also shows that progress is possible. Many countries with the most limited resources are making huge strides in removing the barriers for girls and women across economies, politics and society – demonstrating that when it comes to gender equality, governments shouldn’t have excuses for inaction.”

“As advocates for gender equality in Africa, we can no longer operate on presumptions and approximations. Gaps of inequalities must be marked, counted and recorded so that the trail of implementation is clear and decision makers are held to account. The SDG Gender Index will help to ensure that Africa’s girls and women are counted and accounted for,” said Memory Kachambwa, Executive Director of the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET).

“With 8,000 decision-makers, advocates, and influencers gathered in Vancouver as part of the Women Deliver Conference, and over 100,000 participating around the world, we have the collective power to drive real progress on these gender equality scores and create real impact for girls and women,” said Katja Iversen, President/CEO of Women Deliver.

Released alongside the index, a new report from Plan International revealed that a vast majority of girls worldwide want to take leadership positions in the workplace, politics and wider society, yet more than 9 out of 10 believe as women leaders they will suffer widespread discrimination and sexual harassment.

Read Also: Key findings of the TAC Baseline Study [Infographic]

Close to 10,000 girls and young women between 15 and 24 years were surveyed in 19 countries as part of the research released today at the Women Deliver 2019 Conference.

Of all girls and young women surveyed, 76% said they aspired to be a leader and over 60% said they felt confident of their abilities to lead. At the same time, 94% believed that being a leader involved being treated unfairly as compared to men and 93% felt female leaders experienced unwanted physical contact. Alarmingly, this perception was stronger amongst young women who had some experience of leadership than those who had none.

“The findings show that despite having the aspirations to lead, girls and young women have extremely negative perceptions of what being a female leader involves,” said Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen, CEO of Plan International. “No matter where you are – USA or India, Japan or Sudan – for girls and women globally, being a leader means discrimination and harassment. That’s a major deterrent. In light of this, it’s not surprising that only 24% of parliamentarians worldwide and only 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women.
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The report: Taking the Lead, is the first of its kind that shines a light on girls’ and young women’s leadership aspirations, perceptions and real experiences across diverse societies and economies across the globe. It is jointly produced with the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media.

Credit: SDG Gender Index

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The study report dubbed “Economic and Social Costs of VAWG in Ghana” revealed that women survivors who accessed services and reported, incurring expenses spent $53 annually on average, which is the equivalent to 10 per cent of their annual per capita expenditure on non-food consumption.

The new research highlighting the high economic and social cost of VAWG in Ghana was launched on Wednesday in Accra by Madam Malonin Asibi, Director of the Domestic Violence Secretariat of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection.

Madam Asibi said, “VAWG undermines the quality of life for families and the well-being of children, which has long-term consequences for our social life”.

The project, funded by the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) as part of its global What Works to Prevent VAWG Programme, found that violence against women places a significant burden on women and their families.

Aside from Ghana, the DFID is also funding similar research projects in Pakistan and South Sudan (2014-2019).

In 2016, a consortium, led by the National University of Ireland (NUI), Galway, with Ipsos MORI and the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) at the University of Ghana and working in collaboration with the ISSER, undertook mixed-methods study to estimate the economic losses caused by VAWG as well as the non-economic costs of violence that impact on economic growth, development and social stability in Ghana.

Professor Felix Asante, Director, ISSER, University of Ghana, and the Project Co-Principal Investigator, said: “This research underscores the importance of understanding the economic impacts of violence against women and its serious consequences for the wider economy.”

The study sample shows a prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) at 43 per cent among currently partnered women aged 18-60, in 12 months (2016) in the country.

This is higher than the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS) because the study included economic, psychological, physical and sexual violence and had a wider age range than the GDHS, which focused only among women aged 15-49.

Mrs Enyonam Azumah, Deputy Team Leader for Social Sectors, DFID, said “the impact of the Ghana study may be significant in breaking new ground in understanding the impact of VAWG on the physical and mental health of individuals, community cohesion, economic stability and development in order to provide further evidence for government to accelerate efforts to address VAWG.”

Key findings of the study showed that IPV and violence by family members were the most common forms of violence experienced by women in Ghana.

It said four out of 10 Ghanaian women surveyed who were in current relationship experience IPV, and two women living with natal or marital families, experienced family violence in 2016.

It indicated that the scale of VAWG-related loses to the economy was significant.

With regards to the intergenerational impact, the report estimated that 300,000 school days were missed by children per year in Ghana due to their mothers’ experience of violence.

It said this missed schooling had long-term impacts on capacities and future earnings of the children of women who experience violence.

It said VAWG could deepen household poverty; stating that many women who experience VAWG bear increased costs due to violence, for example, medical care.

With regards to work and productivity impact on women, the study said that in Ghana, economically, active IPV survivors were absent from work or less productive for 12 days within the study period.

On business losses, the study revealed that businesses incur losses due to IPV and non-partner sexual violence experienced by their female employees outside the workplace.

“One in four female employees in the businesses surveyed reported productivity loss as a result of IPV equal to 14 days in the last year,” the study said.

Read Also : Open Data Day: iWatch Africa criticizes DOVVSU & MoGCSP over failure to publish data on violence and discrimination against women

Dr Nata Duvvury, NUI, Galway, and Overall Principal Investigator said: “This research lays in simple terms the heavy burden that VAWG places on economic activity in any country.”

She said the study demonstrates that preventing violence was necessary and important to integrate into government policies and budgets to secure Ghana’s prosperity.

Credit: ISSER

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