Gendered Resource Governance: Women, Oil, and Climate Politics in South Sudan

This perspective piece critically examines the intersection of gender, oil governance, and emerging climate politics in South Sudan from 2021 to 2024. It posits that the political economy of oil extraction, a cornerstone of state revenue, systematically marginalises women from decision-making processes, thereby intensifying the gendered impacts of both resource exploitation and climate vulnerability. Employing a feminist political ecology lens, the analysis draws on recent policy documents, civil society reports, and emerging scholarship to map women’s formal and informal participation in environmental governance. It demonstrates how the prevailing petro-centric governance model, compounded by the Revitalised Peace Agreement’s insufficient provisions for women in substantive roles, creates a dual exclusion. Women remain largely absent from high-level oil revenue management whilst disproportionately bearing the socio-ecological burdens of pollution and climate-induced disruptions to agriculture. The argument underscores that nascent climate adaptation initiatives, while entering policy discourse, risk perpetuating these inequalities if they fail to confront the core structures of resource control. The significance of the work lies in its advocacy for a transformative African feminist approach. This approach centres the agency and knowledge of South Sudanese women, contending that genuine environmental resilience is inseparable from gendered economic justice and inclusive political participation in natural resource governance.