Putting Gender on the Corporate Agenda in Ghana’s Oil and Gas Industry

Tackling gender inequality within Ghana’s oil industries and the wider Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) requires a fundamental shift within the industry and the state’s policy direction and scope. It requires reshaping the values, culture, and norms that produce and maintain gender bias within the industry (Greenspan (2017). Position Paper on Gender Justice and the Extractive Industries. Oxfam America.). It further necessitates “deliberately putting” gender on the corporate agenda of extractive firms to complement the affirmative action efforts from the state. This also requires collaborative and concerted efforts from the public and private authorities of relevant institutions to embark on policy drives to effect these changes. Besides meeting SDG 5, studies confirm a positive correlation between increasing gender equality, progressive women’s rights, and poverty alleviation (Chant, International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship 6:296–316, 2014; Shikha, International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanity Studies 11:84–98, 2019). Gendering the corporate agenda to ensure gender equality must become one of the central indicators of the industry’s success as a driver of sustainable development. The central proposition of this chapter is that Ghana's oil and gas industry can play an unmatched role in ensuring gender equality in the political and economic domain of the country and the country’s quest to meet the SDGs on poverty reduction and gender equality. This being the case, the chapter proceeds, after the introduction, with an overview of the Dynamics of Oil Extraction. The next sections delved into Mainstreaming Gender: Affirmative Actions and Institutional Provisions, Gendering the Corporation, Ghana’s Institutional Efforts in Gender Mainstreaming, and some concluding remarks and policy recommendations.