Economic and health impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent girls working in artisanal and small-scale mining sectors in Uganda and Ghana

The COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to control it have threatened livelihoods, introduced new workplace risks and made unstable work relationships even more precarious, especially for women. These trends affect the artisanal small-scale mining of gold in Uganda and Ghana, which is on the rise. While all people involved are vulnerable due to the often informal and unpaid nature of the work, cultural practices and traditional gender roles mean that adolescent girls in these communities are especially marginalized.

This project will assess the economic and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent girls living in unplanned mining communities in Uganda and Ghana. A detailed list will be produced of interventions that can strengthen coping skills and foster resilience during pandemic recovery. The project will provide policymakers and programmers with a prototype process and a co-developed intervention that can be used as a base for future policies and programs to reduce gender-based inequalities in this sector.

This project is funded under the Women’s health and economic empowerment for a COVID-19 Recovery that is Inclusive, Sustainable and Equitable (Women RISE), an initiative of IDRC, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Its aim is to support global action-oriented, gender-transformative research by teams of researchers from low- and middle-income countries and Canada.