by Grace Kwinjeb
Women in southern Africa should unite and speak with “one voice” regardless of party affiliation, to strengthen women’s empowerment at policy decision- making levels in their countries.
The challenge was made by participants to the United Nations Women’s Fund (UNIFEM) 20th anniversary Colloquium recently in Harare. Members of the women’s movement, parliamentarians, diplomatic corps and representatives of donors from within and outside the Southern African Development Community Region (SADC), attended to discuss and understand the realities of women and gender in the region.
The colloquium, whose theme focused on issues relating to women’s economic empowerment and Achievement, was also a platform for sharing experiences and ideas on the way forward while taking stock of progress since the Beijing conference on women last year.
As Gita Honwana Welch. UNlFEM’s regional programme advisor for eastern and southern Africa said in her opening speech: “The celebration of UNIFEM’s twentieth anniversary, comes a year after the Beijing conference. It is a year now since our common vision was reaffirmed in Beijing.”
She challenged participants, drawn from Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, to the two-day gathering to advance common strategies and move from words to action.
This process has already begun in some countries in the region. In Tanzania, for instance, the Beijing Platform for Action has been translated into Kiswahili, while the Botswana government has adopted a gender policy. In South Africa a woman’s budget has been introduced in the government to help uplift the status of women.
Pregs Govender, an African National Congress (ANC) member of parliament in South Africa, explained how women parliamentarians in that country came up with the idea of a women’s budget.
The women’s budget is gender sensitive and takes account of issues that contribute to poverty among women when allocating funds for government’s annual expenditure.
“The women’s budget raises the question of needs and values, bearing in mind that the poor who are mostly women have grown in numbers,” said Govender, who explained that the Government of national Unity has agreed to incorporate it into the national budget.
She said this budget gained public and government acceptance because it was spearheaded by women parliamentarians, who formed the committee on the quality of life and status of women, which Govender chairs.
Other women in the region were inspired because there is a general consensus that poverty is increasing and women are suffering the most.
Other issues relating to women’s empowerment include: women’s access to and control over resources, gender and violence, women in industry; and manufacturing and trade, which are critical areas of concern on the Beijing Platform for Action.
The executive secretary of SADC, Dr Kaire Mbuende re-affirmed the need for the regional organ to address the challenges women face in their daily lives.
“The contribution of women to development in the region is pivotal.” he said making reference to the fact that even though women in the SADC region provide 70 percent of labour for food production, their contribution is not counted at all.
SADC, he said, was in the process of establishing an internal appropriate structure to facilitate programme design and implementation of gender issues.
Bingu Wa Mutharika, the secretary general of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), echoed similar sentiments. He said women play significant roles in industry and trade and are becoming increasingly important in the service industries such as the legal profession, banking, transport and medical services.
“It is therefore unrealistic to envisage trade and development and indeed regional co-operation and integration without the full participation of women.”
In her presentation, Ana Loforte, a researcher with the Mozambican office of the Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA) highlighted the plight of women in accessing and controlling resources within the family.
Although the constitution of Mozambique guarantees equal rights and protection for all citizens irrespective of colour, creed, religion or sex, these have not been achieved because socio-cultural and constitutional systems have undermined these rights.
Dr Athalia Molokomme, leader of Emang Basadi, a non-governmental organisation in Botswana which is working to improve the status of women by lobbying policy-makers for gender sensitive laws, stressed in her paper on Power-sharing and Democracy, that political commitment by governments was the key to gender equality.
She urged women to form vibrant movements which would keep pressure on governments to “commit themselves both to the theory and to the practise of gender balance.”
Stressing that, “a democracy without women’s participation belongs to the past,” Molokomme said governments should be made to include more women in their cabinets to increase participation of women in decision-making.
Noting that women suffered most in times of hunger, droughts and political conflicts, the meeting challenged SADC to include women in the regional food security initiatives as well as in economic and political empowerment,
Among others, participants recommended that UNIFEM and partners develop a communication strategy to publicise the Beijing Platform for Action in local languages to widen understanding of gender issues by various groups of society thereby increasing visibility for women. (SARDC)
