WUNRN
http://newafricanmagazine.com/empowering-african-women-gender-agenda/
Empowering African Women: Gender Is the Agenda
Dr. Nkosazana
Dlamini-Zuma, the Chairperson of the African Union
By Belinda Otas – 4 April 2015
As the African
Union declares 2015 the “Year of Women’s Empowerment”, what the declaration
really entails. What does it take to empower women and why?
It is unarguable
that while African women have long been regarded as the backbone of African
societies, by and large gender parity is still a lofty dream across the
continent. Many champions of women’s rights say the battle is far from won.
At the January
heads of state summit, the AU decided to add its weight to the fighting gender
inequity cause, declaring 2015 as the “Year of Women’s Empowerment and
Development towards Africa’s Agenda 2063.” It is the first time the AU
has done so since its formation over a decade ago.
While African
women have made considerable gains in the political, economic and social
development of the continent, they are still widely marginalised within the
corridors of power and when applying for jobs; and continue to face social
exclusion, from education to their inability to own land or inherit property.
Issues of child
marriage, harmful traditional practices, and gender-based violence also rank
highly among the scourges that have held back the progress of most African
women.
While governments
across the continent recognise the need to give women equal access to
opportunities and services, and to this end have adopted gender policies like
the AU Protocol on Women’s Rights, also known as the Maputo Protocol, alongside
initiatives like the African Women’s Decade, to create an environment that
enables the empowerment of women, Sub-Saharan Africa still has the lowest
proportion of countries with gender parity, according to UNICEF. The policies
are there but implementation has proved challenging over the years.
This could be the
reason Dr.Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the chairperson of the African Union, was
vehemently vocal about the crucial nature of 2015’s theme to empower women
during her opening speech at the AU summit, when she said: “We must do more
this year to increase the representation of women in government, in the
judiciary and other public and private institutions and their participation at
the tables in peace negotiations.”
Although the theme
of the summit was rather sidelined in the wake of President Robert Mugabe
taking over the AU chairmanship, it could not happen in a more poignant
year – 2015 will see the conclusion of the Millennium Development Goals,
which have been a milestone in global and national development efforts,
especially issues that affect women and children.
At a time when
Africa is home to some of the world’s fastest-growing economies, Nyaradzayi
Gumbonzvanda, the AU Goodwill Ambassador for Ending Child Marriage and a
champion of women’s empowerment, believes that empowering African women and
girls should be part of the continent’s development strategy.
“The leaders need
to know that the young women and girls are here and they are not a statistic.
The leaders need to create time to meet, dialogue, listen and then act.
“This is part of
Africa rising. Africa will not rise as long as its daughters are bleeding and
Africa will never be prosperous or at peace with itself if the whole generation
is losing opportunities,” she says.
Education has long
been argued as one of the key solutions to ensuring women and girls gain equal
access to political and socio-economic power in society. Women activists,
policy-makers and well-known voices, like the award-winning Benoise singer
Angelique Kidjo, have long campaigned and fought vigorously for the education
of girls, achieving significant gains. However, inadequate funds, tradition and
culture (in particular, strong cultural norms that favour the education of boys
over girls, as well as early child marriage) continue to be some of the main
causes of a lack of education for women in Africa.
In 2011, UNICEF
estimated that 31 million girls of primary school age and 34 million girls of
lower secondary school age were not enrolled in school and according to
statistics, one in four women globally are still illiterate, with most of them
living in sub-Saharan Africa.
It is reported
that in 47 out of 54 African countries, girls have less than a 50 per cent
chance of completing primary school.
With women making
up more than 50% of Africa’s population, many advocates of gender empowerment
question how the continent’s current economic growth and outlook will be
sustained, if the subjugation of women’s issues is still deeply and widely
embedded.
Without investing
in the education of girls, or providing unrestricted access to political and
economic opportunities, without social freedoms such as sexual and reproductive
health rights, an entire half of the continent’s population is left out of
Africa’s development agenda. This affects progress in turn and perpetuates
poverty.
This is a point
Joaquim Chissano, former President of Mozambique and co-chair of the high-level
task force for the International Conference on Population and Development
(ICPD) makes in his 2014 article, Empowering Africa’s Women Is the Key to
Economic Wealth. He wrote, “Women and girls are Africa’s greatest untapped
resource, and it is they, not diamonds or oil and minerals, that will be the
foundation for solid, sustainable and equitable progress.”
He adds:
“Expanding the freedoms, the education and opportunities for women hold the key
to kick-starting inclusive economic growth. This is true the world over, and
particularly true for Africa… we need to pay more attention to the situation of
adolescent girls. More than a third of girls in Africa are married before
reaching the age of 18 – often at the expense of their education, health and
social aspirations. Adolescent girls are far more likely to die from
childbirth-related complications than older women, and face greater risks of
abuse and of contracting HIV.”
Grim statistics
indeed, which raise debate as to why (after many years of being routinely left
on the back-burner and never being a priority), the AU has chosen this time to
specifically look into problems and scourges that hold back half its people.
Make Every Woman
Count
It
remains to be seen how Africa’s Agenda 2063 will factor the crucial elements
like education, health, social freedom, and access to credit for African women
entrepreneurs into its empowerment vision.
In a 2012 report,
Make Every Woman Count, an independent NGO that promotes the empowerment of
African women and girls, argued that “ Empowerment women could drive economic
growth, promote peace and advance development and social justice.”
The report adds:
“Women and girls need to be considered as agents of change to enable them to
participate in the economic, social, and political development within their
community and have equal access to health information and services, education,
employment and political positions.”
If the goal of the
AU is to finally ensure this happens, that is, an idea worthy of support, after
all, Africa has nothing to lose but everything to gain.
For now, hope is
resting on Dlamini-Zuma – as a woman herself leading the policy-making arm of
the continental body – to move the women’s agenda beyond rhetoric and
conference plenary sessions.