Africa's development depends in large part on ending discrimination against women, who are the continent's most productive force. This is why pioneering work on gender has been going on since 1971 at the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), says its Executive Secretary, Mr. K.Y. Amoako, describing it as the "single greatest crosscutting issue." It is also why "African Women and Economic Development: Investing in our Future" was chosen as the theme of ECA's 40th anniversary conference, Mr. Amoako told the opening session.
The conference, held in Addis Ababa from 28 April to 1 May 1998, was a major affair. It did not end with a declaration, but the participants -- well over 1,000 -- committed themselves to carry home the decisions made in Addis Ababa, and to implement them at local, national and sub-regional level. They decided to, among other things: introduce a gender perspective in all economic and budgetary work; promote women's participation in governance; enable women to benefit directly from information and communications technology; and train youth to play a full role in Africa's development.
Key participants included UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who were joined for a "Leaders' Forum" on the last day by Presidents Blaise Compaoré (Burkina Faso) and Festus Mogae (Botswana), Vice-Presidents Wandira Specioza Kazibwe (Uganda) and John Atta-Mills (Ghana), Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia (Algeria), Secretary of State Sadek Fayala (Tunisia), as well as Organization of African Unity (OAU) Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim and Mr. Amoako.
Conference organizers structured the proceedings to demonstrate that progress in gender issues depends on an informed dialogue and partnership between men and women (and youth) and women's full participation in decision-making in all economic and social sectors. Thus, between plenary sessions, the conference broke up into smaller working groups for a day of intensive discussions on the major themes.
Several of these groups were chaired by some of the 50 African ministers, drawn from a wide range of sectors, who came, not to make set-piece speeches, but to exchange ideas and reinforce their own commitment. Many of them were, of course, women. And alongside the high-level representatives of many UN, multilateral and bilateral agencies, there were also numerous African and external non-governmental organizations (NGOs), providing their own energy and perspectives and making full use of an official "open space" in the conference centre to publicize their work.
Progress in five key areas is "creating new opportunities of historic dimensions for social development in Africa," Mr. Amoako said in his opening speech. These are the information and communications revolution; improvements in health systems; increasingly responsive systems of governance; broader local and international partnerships (including with civil society and the private sector); and the drive to end gender discrimination.
Momentum is increasing in all these areas and pushing Africa towards
"a golden age of social development," he continued. Warning that
this age will come about only when leaders and policy-makers consciously
build on current opportunities, he said now is the time "for boldness,
for vision and for optimism for the well-being of Africa's peoples in the
decades ahead."
Photo: Libya Mullugetta
Progress for women "does not intrinsically require" multiparty elections, Westminster democracies, fully liberalized markets, and fully adjusted macro-economic policies. All governments, political systems, economies and economic systems "can and should be held to the tests of gender integration and equity," Mr. Amoako said.
This opened up a central theme, that African development is being retarded by the discrimination that continues to afflict at least half its population. As Secretary-General Kofi Annan put it, gender equality "is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance."
Such equality is a practical necessity, said Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, stating that societies that fail to make full use of half their human resources are "condemned to remain wallowing in poverty and backwardness." He hoped the "destitute, poor and average African woman whose life situation embodies the African economic, political and social predicament so vividly and so fully" would occupy centre-stage of the conference.
According to Mr. Annan, Africa's challenge today is fully to harness "the wisdom, the energies, and the creativity of women, to the benefit of all." This means ensuring that women are involved "at every stage, at every level and at all times, in the process of building the new Africa." Even in the midst of war, he reminded everyone, women keep family life going, they care for the sick and injured; they fetch water and firewood, grow crops, and tend animals. It is "an injustice and an outrage that women, who are the most likely to argue for peace, are also the ones most severely punished in conflicts usually created by men," the Secretary-General declared.
Urging African leaders to recognize that women's rights are human rights, he pointed out that almost half of Africa's population is under 25 years old, and more than half of them are girls and young women. He said African governments, the international community and the UN system must collaborate to ensure that they do not become a lost generation. Provided a forum by the conference to speak for themselves, young Africans from 18 countries discussed issues of concern to them and put their views directly to government leaders in the final session.
Indeed, girls and women have the most to lose if the right choices are not made, Sweden's State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Mats Karlsson told the plenary session. "It is when women organize that a new democratic culture will emerge," he added.
Mr. Karlsson said Africa is undergoing a gender revolution that should put an end to "gender apartheid." The process is not only part of a "radical deepening of democratic culture and respect for human rights," but also part of a wider economic challenge.
For example, empowering women for poverty eradication means women having "their full share of power over local resources" and getting land rights and access to credit. Stressing that women's choices in risk assessment and time allocation can make or break the efficient link between micro and macro strategies, Mr. Karlsson challenged those who "have not understood the need for gender analysis in road building [to] go back and learn their ABCs."
He charted Sweden's progress from the "undemocratic, poverty-stricken country" of his parents to today's democratic and social market economy in which women form over 40 per cent of the parliament and half the government. He then said Africa faces three pairs of options: "whether to deepen or disregard the culture
of democracy, the respect for human rights, and allow the gender revolution to run its course; whether to make the emerging market economies social or see their creative power appropriated by elites and wasted through corruption; whether to create a capacity revolution to strengthen the people's ability to analyze, choose and shape [their future], or continue to let people be incapacitated by ignorance or the dependency syndrome."
Injecting his own dose of realism into the proceedings, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi pointed out that women's rights are not simply a legal or constitutional matter. There must also be a "commitment to grassroots democracy which must incorporate the vast majority of women and their active participation in decision-making at various levels." He argued that the virtue of women's participation is not "independent of the values they bring to bear on policy formulation." Policies that are not people-centred and that are elitist in their thrust would have little meaning or relevance to the average woman, no matter who is their author, the Prime Minister said.
Amidst the polite and often earnest speech-making, there were special moments. Among them was when Vice-President Kazibwe challenged the men on the podium with her for the Leaders' Forum: "How can you call yourself a man when there is no food in your home?"
Photo: Libya Mullugetta
Mr. Meles expressed support for affirmative action, except if it falls into tokenism. He also opposed having women in cabinet just so a government "can show off." He insisted on having "effective ministers" whatever their gender.
Mr. Annan then intervened mildly, recalling that women complain of being held to higher standards than men and demand the right to be as mediocre as men.
Yet another moment was when UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Stephen Lewis called for an end to the "really invidiousgender discrimination which runs through the UN system." There is no agency for gender issues, while the UN system has separate entities that "represent the post office, air travel and intellectual property." He said the closest thing to such an agency is the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). Even with a meagre annual budget of under $20 mn, and some 45-50 staff, it has made a "very considerable impact when it is given the opportunity," Mr. Lewis said. If the UN wants to make a principled difference in Africa, he said, one way is to multiply UNIFEM's funding and personnel by 10.
Ministers to mobilize political willMore than 50 African ministers attending the ECA conference pledged to develop at the highest level of government "a veritable political will favourable to the advancement of women and responsive to gender disparities and gender issues." At a special meeting held to draw up their own position, the ministers listed several reasons for optimism for Africa's new generation, including "the welcome influence of globalization on African economies." They undertook to disseminate the results of the conference through follow-up activities at national and community level. Among their recommendations, the ministers said quotas should be institutionalized to increase women's participation in decision-making, and that the post-Beijing national plans of action should be integrated into development planning. Structural adjustment programmes should be harmonized with the specific social and gender conditions of individual countries, and decision-makers, especially planners and those involved in preparing national budgets, should be sensitized to gender and development issues. They proposed devising legislation to facilitate women's access to land, and to combat gender inequality as well as all violence against women and girls at home, at school and in the community. The ministers also called for conversion of national debt into financing for women's and youth projects. |
