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Africa: Gender and NEPAD, 1
Africa: Gender and NEPAD, 1
Date distributed (ymd): 021104
Document reposted by Africa Action
Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information
service provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa
Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American
Committee on Africa). Find more information for action for
Africa at http://www.africaaction.org
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +gender/women+ +political/rights+
+economy/development+
SUMMARY CONTENTS:
"NEPAD is better understood as being in the category of empty
lip-service to principles of gender equality. In principle NEPAD is
much in favour of equal rights for women, but in practice it
proposes almost nothing in the form of action to realise these
principles."
This is the bottom-line conclusion from this paper by Sara
Hlupekile Longwe (sararoy@zamnet.zm)
on how women's gender issues (i.e. women's human rights) have been ignored in the framework for
African development adopted by African countries under the acronym
NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Development). The author is a
feminist consultant and chairperson of the African Women's
Development and Communications Network (FEMNET)
(http://www.africaonline.co.ke/femnet).
The paper was presented at an NGO-Forum, 14-16 October 2002,
organised by the African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights
Studies (ACDHRS), Banjul, The Gambia, in preparation for the 32nd
Session of the African Commission on African Human and Peoples'
Rights (ACAHPR), Banjul, 17-23 October 2002. The text was
distributed by the author on the NEPAD-Forum discussion organized
by FEMNET (
http://lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/nepad-forum).
Because of the importance of this document, and the strong and
clear critique it presents, we are reposting the full text, in two
postings. The full text as a Word attachment is also available in
the archive of the nepad-forum mailing list at the web address
above.
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NEPAD Reluctance to Address Gender Issues
Sara Hlupekile Longwe, Feminist Consultant
11 October 2002
1. Introduction
This paper assesses whether NEPAD (The New Partnership for African
Development) can provide the basis for action on issues of gender
inequality, and therefore whether the newly formed African Union
provides a new opportunity and mechanism for progress towards equal
rights for women in Africa.
The assessment of NEPAD's intention to address gender issues is
analysed by looking at NEPAD as a planning sequence, from
expression of principles and goals, through to the identification
of the specific actions proposed to achieve these goals. The
interest is to examine the attention to gender through the sequence
of planning steps, looking specifically at the consistency of the
logic in the treatment of gender issues as the planning sequence
unfolds.
From this analysis it is found that NEPAD begins with some fairly
strong statements of principle on the need for gender equality. But
this initial commitment fades away as the planning sequence
proceeds, leading to no adequate identification of specific gender
issues to be addressed, and no strategies and or proposed actions
to address gender issues. This is despite the many very serious
gender issues that are generally known to be important in the NEPAD
priority areas of democracy, good governance and human rights.
This lack of intention to act on women's rights is seen in the
context of the African Union, which is seen as a collection of
patriarchal states with a record in this area of high level
commitments and low level action. For action on gender issues, the
NEPAD document is not seen as a new turning point, but rather as a
continuation of the previous miserable record.
Given this evidence of lack of political will within the African
Union for action on women's rights, the paper concludes with some
strategic considerations on how feminists and other human rights
activists can better push the African Union in the direction of
their own formally declared principles and commitments, or
otherwise embark on their own independent strategies.
2 Gender Issues Which NEPAD Needs to Address
Before we begin our analysis of how NEPAD treats gender issues, we
should first consider the necessary importance of these issues to
the overall programme. This importance arises first and foremost in
NEPAD's own declared central interest in issues of good governance,
democracy and human rights, which are seen as the preconditions for
development. Gender issues are also important, although perhaps
secondarily, in the area of economic development. For the sake of
brevity, we shall here confine ourselves mainly to the first area,
of gender issues in democracy, good governance and human rights.
For good governance, it is axiomatic that all citizens should have
equal rights in law and before the law. All publicly available
opportunities and resources must be equally available to all,
without discrimination. As far as women's rights are concerned,
this means that there must be no discrimination against women.
Specifically, this means women should not be subjected to different
treatment on the basis of sex. And yet, contrary to such principles
of democracy and good governance, women throughout the continent of
Africa live in extremely patriarchal societies, where men control
the decision making process in the government and in the home. Male
domination of the decision making process serves to ensure that
women get most of the work, and men collect most of the rewards
arising from this work.
The huge gender gaps in literacy, education, wealth and access to
power are the result of discriminatory practices. These practices
do not exist only at the social and traditional level. To different
degrees, in all African countries, these discriminatory practices
are entrenched in law, in the administration of the law, and in the
general regulations governing government and corporate bureaucratic
practice. It is governments who are the principle perpetrators of
discrimination against women, and the enforcers of their continued
oppression.
In my own country of Zambia, an article in the Constitution
purports to protect women from discrimination in any law or public
provision, and yet one of the qualifying clauses in this same
article exludes women from this protection in the areas of personal
law, marriage law and customary law. These, of course, are
precisely the areas of law where women are most discriminated
against, and the areas which, by extension, legitimise
discrimination in other areas. In other words the article which
purports to protect women from discrimination in effect does the
opposite, and legalises it.
This example illustrates a pattern which is common all over Africa,
where statutory law apparently gives equality of status, but where
customary law (or the local version of Sharia law) maintains and
enforces women's subordination.Typically the overall pattern is
that women are treated as legal minors, cannot inherit property,
and cannot own land. Rather than own property, they are part of the
property which is owned by men, often in polygamous marriage. Under
some interpretations of Sharia law, as with the recent sentencing
to death of a woman in Northern Nigeria, the legal system may
enforce ownership and control by a dead husband.
This brief overview of the situation of women's oppression in
Africa is presented here to remind the reader of the enormous
gender issues which the African Union has to face up to if it is to
claim any serious interest in democracy and human rights. Since the
African Union's activities will be mostly concerned with the
co-ordination and harmonisation of national policies, it is the
developmental programme of the Union NEPAD which provides the
vehicle for political and socio-economic development, and therefore
for action on women's rights.
3 A Framework for Analysing Internal Planning Coherence
Although NEPAD describes itself as a 'programme', it is better
understood as a large scale regional strategic development plan. In
this section we identify the essential elements of a development
strategy, so that in the next section we can use these elements to
assess the internal coherence of NEPAD in its treatment of the
gender element within the plan.
Of course it is often the case that development plans do not
measure up very well to the sequence of planning logic which is
suggested below. If so, this is because the planning was not
adequate. To the extent that a plan reveals internal contradictions
or lack of logical connections, the justification for the
development interventions are suspect.
A strategic development plan should typically present itself as a
rational argument, pursued by logical connections along the
following sequence:
Elements of a Strategic Development Plan
- Situation Analysis
- Policy Imperatives
- Problem Identification
- Formulation of Goals
- Identification of Appropriate Intervention Strategies
- Implementation Strategies and
- Objectives Management System
Situation Analysis refers to the initial review of the situation in
the area that is of interest to the plan, particularly to mention
the various problem situations which might need to be addressed by
the plan. Here, with NEPAD, we find mention of quite different
types of problems: firstly to do with globalisation, and Africa's
need to get a fair share of the benefits from the process; secondly
partnership with the West, and the need to escape from the
prevailing pattern of Western domination of a 'rider and horse'
type of partnership; thirdly, the catalogue of developmental
problems of African poverty and underdevelopment.
Policy Imperatives refer to those aspects of the policy environment
which are relevant when deciding what to do about the given
Situation. In terms of formal planning logic, no Situation can be
said to present a Problem unless there are Policy Principles that
dictate that aspects of the situation are unacceptable, and
therefore present a Problem on which action must be taken to
eliminate or alleviate the Problem. However, the relevant policy
environment is commonly omitted from plans, presumably on the
assumption that everybody knows what the policy principles are, or
otherwise because some aspects or the situation are 'obviously'
unacceptable, and are 'obviously' adopted as a problem. In the case
of gender, the reader would like to know what principles of gender
equality guide NEPAD.
Problem Identification. As already mentioned, in planning logic a
problem only formally comes to light when Policy Principles are set
against the Situation Analysis. Despite this formal logic, many
problems are identified as 'obvious', and may indeed be so. But the
'obvious' aspects of problem identification tend to be notably
missing in the area of gender. Whereas many ordinary problems are
'obvious' without recourse to looking at the policy, gender issues
tend to get overlooked, along with the gender policy itself. Gender
issues may be overlooked as being 'political' in plans that take a
technical or purely economic perspective. They may be overlooked
where the vocabulary is gender neutral, in terms of 'people',
'farmers', 'target group', 'beneficiaries', and so on, which
provide an easy formula for gender blind treatment of development
issues. Most of all, gender issues are likely to be overlooked by
male planners who are definitely not interested in recognizing or
addressing issues of gender inequality. With gender issues, it may
be necessary to wave the gender policy in planners' faces before
the existence of gender issues can be admitted. Despite the common
lack of identification of gender issues, it is usually very easy to
give gender issues a specific and precise identification in terms
of the size of gender gaps, and the existence of discriminatory
practices. In the case of NEPAD, the reader would like to know
which gender issues, such as identified gender gaps or forms of
gender discrimination, are of particular interest to NEPAD.
Formulation of Goals should follow naturally from problem
identification, where a goal may be summarized as an expressed
intention to address a problem, perhaps with a statement of
intended quantified outcomes, to be achieved in a specified time.
However, it is not uncommon for the transition from Problem to Goal
to show a complete disappearance of a gender issue. Or it may be
that a broad principle to address gender issues does not lead into
any goal to actually address a gender issue. For example, since
NEPAD claims to be interested in both democracy and gender
inequality, the reader might expect of find a definite goal to
close (the presently huge) gender gaps in parliamentary membership,
and a statement of the time period for this target to be achieved.
Identification of Appropriate Intervention Strategies. The logic in
moving from Goal to Intervention Strategy is that the chosen
intervention, in order to be effective, must tackle one or more of
the underlying causes of the given problem. But with poor planning,
the intervention is merely considered to be a 'good thing to do',
without any established causal connection with the original
problem. Very often intervention strategies are not made clear or
explicit within a strategic plan, but remain implicit within the
statement of goals. Where a plan's gender orientation proceeds as
far as gender oriented strategies, it is often found that there is
no clear logical, experiential or empirical connection between the
gender issues and the proposed intervention to address it. Very
often the systemic or structural aspects of gender discrimination
are forgotten, and interventions are aimed at increasing women's
confidence, skills, literacy, and so on, i.e. limited to increasing
women's access to resources.
Implementation Strategies are the methods that are chosen to
actually implement the intervention strategy. They are therefore
the lower level strategies. For example, the goal of increasing
women's representation in parliament may be achieved by the broad
intervention strategy of affirmative action. This may be achieved
by various implementation strategies, such as reserved seats for
women, or mandatory rules for political parties on proportion of
females amongst candidates, or providing special material support
for female candidates. A Strategic Plan should normally end, at
least in its substantive content, at the level of Implementation
Strategies. The remainder of planning, from Implementation
Strategies onwards, is concerned with the lower levels of action
planning, programme and project planning.
Objectives are the expression of the more specific and more
detailed intention of implementation purpose, especially in terms
of activities and intended outcomes. Very often an implementation
strategy is not properly identified or even justified, but may be
deduced by its being implicit within a list of objectives.
The Management System sets out the system of organization and
management for implementation and supervision. From a gender
perspective, it is particularly important that there is a
management system capable of understanding and implementing gender
oriented objectives, and for monitoring progress on gender
objectives. It is also important that women are represented in
management, and that women amongst the target group, beneficiaries
and affected community are involved in the planning and management
of implementation projects. However, there is often a mistaken
belief that representation of women in management can substitute
for the gender objectives which are missing from a development
plan. A programme manager may claim that, although there may be no
gender objectives, the programme will nonetheless be implemented in
a gender sensitive way. Such an argument, in terms of the above
analytical framework, is self-evident nonsense. A management team
can only enter the difficult project of addressing gender issues if
there is a clear mandate in the programme plan to address
particular gender issues, by means of specified intervention
strategies. In the case of NEPAD, we should expect that the plan
should not only state clear goals and objectives to address
specific gender issues, but also that the NEPAD management system
is gender balanced, and includes people who are trained in gender
planning and implementation, and experienced in recognising the
obstacles and difficulties arising from patriarchal opposition to
policies of gender equality.
4 Analysing NEPAD: Gender Fade Away
Having now set out the desirable planning logic which NEPAD ought
to follow, how well does NEPAD follow this logic in the area of
gender issues? Let us look at the above seven headings again, now
to look at main aspects of the adequacy of the treatment of gender
issues within NEPAD. This present section will look at the first
six headings (i.e. from Situation Analysis through to Objectives),
and the following Section 5 will look at the adequacy of the
proposed NEPAD Management System.
Situation Analysis.
(This is to be found in the NEPAD sections on Africa in Today's
World, The Historical Impoverishment of a Continent, and Africa and
the Global Revolution.) Here there is no mention of a single gender
issue. In terms of logical coherence, how can NEPAD be proposing to
address gender issues when none were even mentioned in the
situation analysis set out in the introductory sections?
Policy Imperatives.
The main NEPAD document has a very weak and unsatisfactory policy
statement concerned with 'promoting the role of women in
development', but this has now been bolstered with the
supplementary NEPAD Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic
and Corporate Governance. This is more in line with the similar
text of the Constitutive Act of the African Union. This Declaration
includes the principle that it is a binding obligation to ensure
that women have every opportunity to contribute in terms of full
equality to political and socio-economic development in all our
countries. (Article 11).
This same Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and
Corporate Governance also reaffirms (at Articles 3 and 4) its
allegiance to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women, the Beijing Declaration, and the OAU
African Charter on Human and People's Rights. This latter document
includes the following principles:
Every individual shall be entitled of the rights and freedoms
recognised and guaranteed in the present Charter without
distinction on any kind such as sex (Article 2)
Every individual shall be equal before the law. Every individual
shall be entitled to equal protection of the law. (Article 3)
The state shall ensure the elimination of every discrimination
against women and ensure the protection of the rights of the women
and the child as stipulated in international declarations and
conventions. (Article 18.3)
Problem Identification.
Given the very serious situation of women's oppression and
marginalisation summarised in Section 2 of this paper, then clearly
the above principles should have comprehensive and serious
implication for the recognition of priority gender issues which
ought to be a primary focus for NEPAD action. Given NEPAD's own
declared interest in good governance, democracy and human rights,
one might be entitled to expect a priority interest in identifying
and removing instances of legalised discrimination in law (both
statutory and customary). However, NEPAD does not identify any
specific gender issues that need to be addressed.After the
Situation Analysis, which does not mention gender issues,
NEPAD moves straight from Policy Principles to Goals. There is no
identification of the focus of problems to be addressed, except
insofar as these are implicit within the Situation Analysis or the
Goals.
[continued in part 2]
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by
Africa Action (incorporating the Africa Policy Information
Center, The Africa Fund, and the American Committee on Africa).
Africa Action's information services provide accessible
information and analysis in order to promote U.S. and
international policies toward Africa that advance economic,
political and social justice and the full spectrum of human rights.
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