Leveraging global links for local advocacy: WACAM’s challenge to the power of transnational mining corporations

Abstract

This article explores local–global interconnections in the context of local rights-based struggles against the adverse impact of gold mining by transnational corporations in Ghana. It examines how a small community-based organisation, WACAM, approached a situation of huge power asymmetry by both mobilising local resistance and developing national and international linkages. In explaining WACAM's relative success in challenging corporate and state powers behind gold mining activities, we focus on its ability to maximise the benefits of alliances with selected organisations, while minimising the risks of doing so through staying locally grounded. This we attribute to WACAM's political orientation to rights advocacy, based in a democratic left political tradition.