From December 5-6th Natural Justice attended the Annual General Meeting of the Kenya Oil and Gas Working Group (KOGWG). KOGWG is a platform for stakeholder, Civil Society and community engagement on governance, sustainability and development issues in the oil and gas sector in Kenya. The first day was a policy review meeting to discuss the Mining Bill 2013 and Petroleum Act. To set up these discussions, presentations on the experiences of other countries in the region were given. Mohammed Athman from Save Lamu presented on his recent experiences in South Africa at the Natural Justice and Namati Land Symposium. Mohammed shared case studies of other communities across Africa who are struggling with similar issues, especially, how to put the law in people’s hands.
In the afternoon, Maya Sikand from Natural Justice gave a presentation on the current Kenyan Mining Bill. The presentation focused on human rights and environmental issues within the Bill, including consent, compensation, benefit-sharing and Environmental Impact Assessments. Notes from the group discussion on the Bill will be submitted as input from the Working Group.
