Beyond the Numbers: Gender-Responsive Revenue Management in Uganda's Extractive Sector
For Gloria Mugambe, transparency begins with a deceptively simple problem: you cannot report what no one has recorded. As Head of the Uganda EITI Secretariat, she works to open up the extractive sector and make it accountable, and she is clear-eyed about how hard gender-responsive reporting really is. Knowing how many women sit on a steering committee is straightforward; tracing how much revenue actually reaches women is not.
In this conversation, Gloria reflects candidly on the obstacles to turning policy into impact, from the absence of an EITI law that would compel companies to respond, to a creeping "gender fatigue" that has slowed momentum. She points to Uganda's women in leadership, including the vice president, prime minister and energy minister, as an opportunity to ask harder questions about who really benefits. But her central message is that representation is only the beginning: the real work is going beyond the numbers to the tangible improvements women want to see for themselves and their children.
Beyond the Numbers: Gender-Responsive Revenue Management in Uganda's Extractive Sector
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. The conversation is available to listen to above. Host: Laury Haytayan, MENA Director, Natural Resource Governance Institute.
Today's conversation sits at the intersection of revenue management, natural resource governance and gender equity. The extractive sector shapes national budgets, community livelihoods and long-term development pathways — but it also carries a long history of unequal benefits and unequal burdens, especially for women. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) has placed gender within its global standards, and the 2023 Standard strengthened requirements for reporting, participation and data disclosure. The aim is to push countries beyond general commitments towards measurable, comparable information on who participates in the sector, who gets compensated, and who is left out.
Gloria, please introduce yourself — who is the Gloria with us today?
Thank you, Laury, and thank you for having me. My name is Gloria Mugambe and I am the head of the Uganda National EITI Secretariat. I've worked here for the past six years, since 2019. I was part of the team that supported Uganda in joining EITI — we became a member in August 2020. My background is in development economics; I worked for DfID, the UK development agency, when it was still in existence, and before that for the Swedish government's development assistance as an economist. I started out as a researcher at a local research agency, the Economic Policy Research Centre. My entry into governance has been an evolution from practising development economics towards governance more specifically. I've loved working with EITI to open up the extractive sector and make it more accountable — to make sure access to information is open to anybody who wants it. We've been doing that for three years now. Our fourth report is about to come out; we've had one validation, and we scored 78.5%.
The 2023 EITI Standard strengthened gender-related requirements. What do these mean in practice for a country like Uganda?
The way EITI works is that we produce an annual report, based on the requirements set out in the EITI Standard. The Standard is an evolving document that changes every three to four years; previously we worked to the 2019 Standard. The 2023 Standard is where gender was emphasised, alongside three other thematic areas — energy transition, anti-corruption and revenue generation. Previously, what we reported against on gender was representation — is there female representation on the country's steering committee? Then contribution to the economy: employment figures disaggregated by gender, for both companies and government. And public debates: is there inclusion, and representation from other groups, so that discussions reflect society? The 2023 Standard takes this a step further and asks for more detail — on representation, on consultation, on revenue allocation (how much of the money from extraction is actually spent on other groups within society) and on activity planning, or participation. So we've had to dig deeper. The report we're about to launch is the first under this Standard where we've tried to get more specifics on representation, consultation, allocation and activity planning for women's participation.
Was that an easy exercise, or a hard one?
Very hard. Even with the 2019 Standard it was difficult to get the detail. It isn't difficult to know how many women and men are on the steering committee. But when it comes to company details — their consultations with communities — many people don't record those numbers. And revenue allocation on women is very difficult; it's hard to point a finger and say exactly how much was spent on women. That level of detail is hard to get, and I'm not sure we fully got it — the validation will tell us. The challenge is sensitising our stakeholders — the extractive companies, government, and the communities themselves — to keep records of these details. Because if the records are not kept, we will not get the numbers, we will not get the information, and we will not be able to report.
How can a government like Uganda use these requirements to push for its own improvement on gender-responsive revenue management?
It should happen, and I think it will be compelled to happen — because EITI membership is voluntary, but once you are a member you must comply with the Standards to be deemed relevant. Uganda has a rich history of trying to engender all its activities, but we've had a slowdown. We're now in an era of what I'd call "gender fatigue." For example, there are complaints that the girl child has been too supported and the boy child has fallen behind — that it's now time for the boy child. We had things like 1.5 extra points at university for girls, and now people say that should be taken away so everyone has an equal chance. So it's no longer only about girls.
We're now in an era of what I'd call "gender fatigue."
But to keep the focus on engendering the economy and the budget, EITI will be a strong force, because we are compelled to report. The government already took some steps — around 2015, with the Public Finance Act — but it has slowed and become a box-ticking exercise. Now they will have to look at it closely again, especially the government institutions involved with extractives, because everybody is asking the questions and we need the data. It will be a mutually reinforcing compulsion, for both government and companies.
How can extractive revenue be used for better livelihoods and the economic empowerment of women?
Getting the numbers is a challenge — we don't have an EITI law in Uganda, so nothing compels the companies to respond; we have to sensitise, persuade, engage and dialogue. For EITI we need numbers on production, export, revenue, and how much is paid to government, so a lot of attention goes to those figures. When it comes to the softer issues, companies tend to say, "but we gave you the main information." We have to push and say that all the information is important — we don't only want production and revenue; we need the same detail and the same attention on participation at community level and on employment disaggregation. And on our side, perhaps we also emphasise getting the numbers too much. Once we have them, we feel we have the key thing everyone wants — but the bigger picture, the outcomes, how it improves livelihoods, being able to tell that story, needs more effort in how we gather the information.
What role can civil society, the private sector, government and communities play in advocating for and monitoring gender-responsive revenue allocation?
We need more opportunities for those dialogues — we don't have enough spaces to engage, so we must be more deliberate and intentional about creating them, and about deciding what we discuss in them. Right now, with oil production coming, everyone thinks the money will build roads and bring electricity; the discussion isn't about whether it will go to social expenditure like health and education. We do need to build the roads, and of course infrastructure matters — but a positive impact on society ultimately comes from social expenditure. If extractive revenue is to be truly beneficial to communities and individuals, we need that discussion about how the money can improve livelihoods, education and health. When we have good facts and figures, we can have a good debate with government — we can say, we went to this community and this is what we found. Mining is also emerging as a huge resource, and the new mining law puts the focus on women and other marginalised groups; many artisanal and small-scale miners are women, so there is an opportunity to leverage resources to improve their livelihoods. The legal framework is in place — the challenge now is to ensure compliance, to follow up on whether the law is being followed, and what the results are.
Who takes these decisions in Uganda, and are there women in those decision-making circles?
We do have women in these spaces. Uganda has ticked the boxes when it comes to engendering our laws — our parliament is one-third women, with special representation for women from each district. In government, our vice president is a woman, our prime minister is a woman, our Minister of Energy is a woman, and the chairpersons of key petroleum institutions, including the national oil company, are women. So we have women in the right places. Decisions on how resources are allocated are ultimately made by parliament — but having women in all these spaces gives us the opportunity for an extra seat: to look again and ask, how are women really going to benefit from this, and if they don't, how can we make it happen? In our next report we want to profile our women in high places, and use that to improve the place of everyday women in the sector.
Any final recommendations before we close?
My last word would be that we need to go beyond the numbers — a concerted effort, all of us together. First we have to get the numbers, which is already very difficult; then we need to go beyond them and identify the tangible improvements we want to see in women's welfare. And not only women — because when you improve women's welfare, you improve children's welfare, and society's holistically. We need to sit down and identify the key issues. When we say we want women's participation, we already have women's representation — so the question is, how can we improve women's participation?
When women benefit, communities benefit.