By Issabelah Mutuku

TI-Kenya in partnership with Oxfam in Kenya and the Kenya Civil Society Platform on Oil & Gas convened a stakeholders’ webinar to explore the inclusion of a Gender approach the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) process in Kenya’s Extractives Sector.

The webinar brought together stakeholders from various agencies among them the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) and National Gender and Equality Commission in Kenya (NGEK). Further, officials from various oil and gas companies including Tullow, Africa Oil and Eni joined the discussion as well as the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Academic and the general public.

The session constituted of presentations from the different sectors with TI-Kenya highlighting on the importance of women participating in the ESIA process. TI-Kenya further explained on the importance to ensure transparency in all stages of the awarding of ESIA licenses. To ensure sustainable mining projects a gendered approach to identifying environmental concerns and mitigation measures must be adopted.

Oxfam in Kenya (OiK) highlighted on the South Lokichar Upstream Case Study noting the importance of taking care of environmental concerns and designing mitigation measures in a manner that caters to both women and men in oil and gas host communities