For more than a decade, WoMin has worked to make visible the costs and losses that extractivist capitalism forces onto African working class and peasant women, their communities, and nature – destroying lives and jeopardising present and future livelihoods. In a system that prioritises profit above all else, we are told that extractivism brings more benefits than costs. Yet, this misleading accounting exercise is based on a selective understanding of who and what counts?
In our effort to evidence these externalised costs, we have supported or directly implemented Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR), conducted feminist political economy analyses, and undertaken Ecofeminist Impact Assessments. We have written and published case studies and stories, as well as produced films. These resources have been utilised by impacted women and their solidarity partners and allies in lobbying and campaigning efforts targeting governments and other responsible institutions, such as bilateral banks, private investors and international finance institutions (IFIs). They have also been used in both traditional and social media and widely disseminated to thousands of readers, activists, media professionals, and policymakers around the world.
In 2021, post-COVID, WoMin began conceptualising a transformed and just cost analysis that would embrace the principles of ecofeminism and cross-generational equity while demonstrating a deep commitment to addressing the ecological and climate crises. This Ecofeminist Cost Analysis (ECA) was first explored in Bomboré, Burkina Faso. In 2022, a second cost analysis was conducted in Toliara, Madagascar, focusing on the impacts of the climate crisis after successive cyclones devastated the western side of the island. This analysis significantly informs our approach to identifying, measuring, and quantifying costs.
In WoMin’s Ecofeminist Cost Analysis: A Briefing Sheet, we look into this journey, the path transited to make visible the impacts forced into communities and nature by extractivist capitalism, through its never ending thirst and through the compounded climate crisis that it fuels (for climate change is a symptom and not the cause of the global crisis of inequality and injustice), and how this collective work can help organise the resistance and the demand for reparations. We explain with more detail the Ecofeminist Cost Analysis and share some of the impacts and lessons learned through the first pilots.
This resource is also a declaration of intentions, as we commit to continue to collectively build ways to learn from the experience from and with peasant and working-class women, and their communities, and let that guide us in supporting women’s organising and movement building efforts.
And finally, this briefing sheet is also an invitation to conversations, to reflections and, we hope, collective work with communities and movements across the continent; with partners and allies supporting struggles on the ground and advocating for sustainable and just alternatives that prioritise the well-being of communities, and the environment; with academia and activists who we are in conversation with to explore ways of capturing some of the costs that we are most struggling with, such as mental health or intergenerational costs, etc.; and with broader audiences for, ultimately, the impacts of this extractivist economic model that attacks the very source of life are carried, albeit differentially, by us all, present and future inhabitants of our planet.
Download in English and French:
