african women and economy

Women in Africa: The Neglected Dimension in Development Author(s): HAZEL BARRETT Source: Geography, Vol. 80, No. 3 (July 1995), pp. 215-224 Published by: Geographical Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40572666 Accessed: 10-01-2020 01:19 UTC

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Women in Africa

The Neglected Dimension in

Development

HAZEL BARRETT

ABSTRACT: This article summarises the aims of the UN Decade for Women (1976-85), and assesses the progress made in sub-Saharan Africa. Three important advances are examined; the increased visibility of women including recognition of their triple workload, the development of a Women in Development policy approach stressing the practical needs of women, and the setting up of international and national political apparatus to publicise and address women's issues. The article highlights some of the main factors that have slowed progress in sub-Saharan Africa. Liberal economic policies as well as the lack of commitment by African governments and aid donors are discussed, together with the rather simplistic and static gender stereotypes used by policy-makers and planners. It is argued that planners and policy- makers should not target women in isolation, but should address gender relations and in particular women 's strategic needs. The article calls for the adoption of a 'Gender and Development' approach in order to achieve the goals set out by the UN Decade almost 20 years ago.

IT IS NOW 20 years since the start of the United Nation's Year for Women (1975) and the International Decade for Women (1976-85). It is perhaps timely, therefore, to assess what progress has been made for women, especially rural women in sub-Saharan Africa. This article has four

objectives;

i) to summarise the aims of the International Decade for Women,

ii) to assess what progress has been made in sub-Saharan Africa,

iii) to identify areas of concern, and

iv) to suggest ways forward to the next century.

The aims of the International

Decade for Women

The International Decade for Women was

symbolised by three major conferences (Mexico City, Copenhagen, Nairobi). Each conference was dedicated to one of the major themes of the Decade, namely, equality, development and peace. It was at the third conference, held in Nairobi in 1985, that the major policy document Forward Looking Strategies to the Year 2000 was agreed and published. In this document statements, targets and goals concerning women were set out under the three themes (Pietila and

Vickers, 1990). Firstly, the document covered the issue of equality for women. Legal equality. for women, including rights of divorce, access to children, property, credit, voting and citizenship, was highlighted in the anticipation that discriminatory legal structures would be replaced with an egalitarian legal system. Secondly, the document emphasised the link between women's roles and development. It stated that the marginalisation of women in the development process should be reversed. Quality reproductive healthcare and safe and accessible methods of

family planning should be made available to all women. The issues of sexual exploitation and genital mutilation should be tackled. Also, women should be helped in their domestic life by the introduction of appropriate technology. They should also be given greater access to productive employment and education. The document therefore demanded that the pivotal role of women in society and in the process of development should be recognised and given its true value. Finally the issues of peace and particularly women's political role was addressed. It was stated that women should be given a share of power on equal terms with men. Women's participation and influence in politics should be enhanced, especially their role as negotiators in the disarmament and peace process (Tinker and Jacquette, 1987; Pietila and Vickers, 1990).

Thus the main aims of the Decade mirrored

the three themes; they were ideological in nature with few measurable targets set. In summary, the Decade aimed to eliminate all obstacles in the

way of women enjoying equal status with men by the year 2000 (Coote, 1985).

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What progress has been made in

sub-Saharan Africa?

Since 1975 some progress has clearly been made to integrate women into the development process. Less has been achieved in the legal and political spheres. A number of important advances have been made in terms of rural African women.

Women become visible

An important outcome since 1975 is that African women have become visible. The Decade demonstrated a need for more research and data

on what had previously been the 'invisible woman'. International aid donors as well as bilateral donors funded research and collected

data. The result is that we have a much greater knowledge about African women than we did 20 years ago. The UN now publishes data on women every five years in the World Survey on the Role of Women in Development.

Such research has demonstrated the

tremendous contribution made by rural women to society and the development process in sub- Saharan Africa (Moser, 1989). The notion that African women are 'just' mothers and wives was questioned in 1970 when Boserup eloquently presented evidence to show that Africa was a continent of female farming. She demonstrated that women were responsible for the production of between 60 and 90 per cent of food crops. She also suggested that modernisation was 'capturing' men and leaving women behind in the development process (Whitehead, 1990). The result of the modernisation process, according to Boserup, was a dual agricultural system based on gender, with men growing cash crops and women growing subsistence crops. We now know of course that this description of a division of labour by gender is an over-simplification and in many cases is incorrect. In many African communities men and women contribute to both sectors.

However, such analyses informed subsequent work on gender roles in sub-Saharan Africa. The result has been the identification of, and acceptance that, rural African women perform three roles.

Firstly, African women are reproducers. This is not just in the biological sense, but also in the domestic sphere, where they are responsible for cooking, cleaning and the general smooth running of the household unit. These tasks are performed with few labour-saving technologies

and are consequently time and energy consuming (Barrett and Browne, 1989). Secondly, rural African women are producers. Women in rural Africa are not only major producers of food crops, but also contribute labour to the 'male' cash-

cropping sector, as well as producing crops for sale in their own right. In The Gambia, for example, women produce most of the country's rice crop in fields often distant from the village. They also help on their husband's groundnut fields by weeding and harvesting. In addition, in the dry season they convert their paddy fields into irrigated vegetable gardens. Much of this produce is sold in urban markets and for export, earning women a much needed cash income. Thirdly, women are community managers. They are expected to contribute labour to the community when asked by the village elders. For example, they may be asked to fill pot holes in roads and tracks, clear rubbish from communal areas and to contribute to community projects such as the building and maintenance of clinics and schools. In rural Gambia women volunteer in a rota

system to cook dinners for school children with ingredients donated by Freedom from Hunger.

From such analyses, development planners have identified needs, specific to women, based on these three roles. These needs are divided into

Weeding a rice field - a backbreaking but essential task

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practical and strategic gender needs. Following the work of Molyneux, Moser (1989, 1993) summarises practical gender needs as those which enable women to perform their current gender roles more effectively. This translates into the needs of the domestic arena, women's income-earning activities and their community level commitments. Practical gender needs thus reinforce existing gender roles, enabling women to perform them more efficiently. Practical gender needs therefore do not challenge existing gender roles and do not seek to change them. Strategic gender needs, on the other hand, are those which confront gender inequality and female subordination and question the nature of relationships between men and women. This may include the removal of institutionalised forms of

discrimination such as rights to ownership and inheritance, access to credit, choice over family size and issues concerning rights within marriage (Moser, 1989, 1993; Young, 1993). These perceived gender roles and needs have formed the basis of development planning for and with women for the last 20 years.

The recognition of women's contribution to the development process and the adoption of a Women in Development' approach Since 1975 planners and policy-makers have recognised the potential of female labour for economic and social development. Rural African women are regarded as an 'untapped' resource to be utilised and developed. Planners and policy- makers responded by targeting women in their development plans. Five approaches to women and development have been apparent over the last 20 years and have been labelled the welfare, equity, anti-poverty, efficiency and empowerment approaches. Table 1 illustrates how these approaches were summarised by Moser (1993). The varying temporal popularity of each approach reflects general shifts in African development policy, which has moved from modernisation through basic needs to the recent liberal policies associated with structural adjustment.

Before 1975, the welfare of Africa's mothers was the dominant issue in development planning for women - a recognition of their roles as mothers and wives. However, during the Decade for Women, the marginalisation of women in the development process was recognised and the need for equity with men emphasised. The equity approach, which aimed to tackle women's strategic needs, was unpopular with African governments and aid donors alike. As the equity

approach became more unpopular it was replaced by the anti-poverty approach. Within this approach female poverty was regarded as the main constraint to development in rural Africa. Thus a shift had taken place in the emphasis of development plans from strategic to practical gender needs. The economic crisis which hit Africa in the 1980s, with its resultant stabilisation and adjustment policies sponsored by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, led to another shift in development planning, to an efficiency approach. Agencies and governments saw the potential of women as a source of free' labour. Women's time was seen as

elastic and they were encouraged to produce more for the market; at the same time declining social services meant that they were expected to contribute more as reproducers and community managers. Thus their triple workload was to be utilised more efficiently. This is the dominant approach in Africa in the 1990s. The empowerment approach questions existing gender roles and argues that women are near breaking-point. Women just do not have the time and energy that efficiency planners assume. Proponents of the empowerment approach want the emphasis brought back to women's strategic needs. They argue that the assumption of women's triple roles must be challenged and that these roles should be renegotiated. This is to be achieved by empowering women. This challenging approach is largely unsupported by governments and official aid agencies, but has been embraced by smaller non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as OXFAM.

The establishment of the political apparatus to deal with women's issues

As we have seen, women have become widely recognised as important contributors to the development process in rural Africa. This has been reflected in the formal political apparatus which has developed in the last 20 years. At the international level the UN set up two organisations, UNIFEM and the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), specifically to address issues of special relevance to women (Tinker and Jacquette, 1987). By 1981 the Year Book of International Organisations listed 60 international women's NGOs (Young, 1993). The major multilateral aid donors, such as the European Union and World Bank, set up 'Women's Desks', as have the largest bilateral aid donors. The USA was the earliest, setting up a 'Women in Development' (WID) office in 1974,

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with the aim of encouraging equitable development strategies to meet basic human needs (Staudt, 1982). Other bilateral donors such as Canada and Norway quickly followed suit.

Within sub-Saharan Africa many countries signed the 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. However a third of African countries still have not

ratified the convention (O'Neil, 1992), though many governments have set up ministries or bureaux to highlight and raise awareness concerning women's issues. In The Gambia, for example, the Women's Bureau was set up in 1980, and was placed within the Office of the President. Its aims are to advise government on five issues affecting women, namely: legal rights, health, education and training, income generation, and agriculture and food production.

Thus, the issues affecting the lives of rural African women are being highlighted and discussed both within Africa and at an international level for the first time!

Slow progress Despite the positive developments and initiatives outlined above, progress in sub-Saharan Africa has been disappointingly slow. In terms of women's welfare some encouraging progress has been made, but there is still a great deal to be done. Although girls' enrolments at all levels of education have increased since 1970, they still lag behind boys' (Table 2). The gap in adult literacy levels is still great, with only 38 per cent of adult women literate as compared to 62 per cent of men (World Bank, 1994a). Figure 1 shows the proportion of women who are literate as compared to men. This demonstrates that in no country is female literacy equal to that of males, with the worse rates occurring in West Africa, Chad, Central African Republic and Sudan. There have been improvements in health care, with life expectancy increasing for both men and women since 1970, and the infant mortality rate has dropped from 142 in 1970 to 99 per 1,000 live births in 1992. Yet African women have the highest fertility rate of any global region (6.1 children per woman) and the highest maternal mortality rate, which in 1992 ranged from 77 deaths per 100,000 live births in Zimbabwe, to 2,325 in Mali (the figure in the UK is 11). African women also have the lowest rates of

contraceptive use. This ranges from 43 per cent in Zimbabwe to only 4 per cent in Niger (the UK is about 75 per cent) (World Bank, 1994a).

In terms of hours worked, women in rural sub-Saharan Africa work longer than men, working on average 67 hours a week as

Source: compiled from World Bank (1994a)

compared to 54 hours for men (O'Neil, 1992). This total has increased over the last decade as a

result of environmental decline, economic crisis, social change and the efficiency approach of planners. Of equal concern is the decline in formal sector opportunities for women as a result of economic adjustment policies. Women's share of the formal workforce fell from 40 per cent in 1970 to 37 per cent in 1992 (World Bank, 1994a). As Fig. 2 shows, female labour force participation as a proportion of males employed is also spatially varied with the lowest rates occurring in West and north-eastern Africa. The low levels of

female labour force participation, however do not mean that women are doing nothing; they are highly evident in the informal sector in all parts of the continent. There is also evidence that African

women, especially rural women, are becoming poorer, with all this means for the welfare of their families and children.

Legal equality for women in Africa remains a serious concern. Issues of inheritance, property ownership, access to credit and family planning are serious concerns for women in most sub-

Saharan African countries. Little progress has been made. Perhaps this is because few women hold political positions in Africa. In 1987 only 2.5 per cent of ministerial positions were held by women (O'Neil, 1992), the same proportion as at the beginning of the Decade. These women tend to preside over the 'feminine' ministries such as community development, education, health, social welfare and women's issues. Over half the states in Africa have no women in cabinet at all

(Parpart and Staudt, 1989). It is clear that for many rural African women

little has changed since 1975. They are still subordinate to men, being discriminated against by both customary and modern law (Ivan-Smith et al., 1988). As we have seen, many of the

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Table 2

Sub-Saharan Africa: percentage of age group enroled in school

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Fig. 1. African literacy, 1992: females as a percentage of males. Source: United Nations Development Programme (1994).

policies and plans implemented since 1975 have reinforced existing subordinate gender roles and have shied away from tackling women's strategic needs. As -the UN Status of Women Commission, 1990, says of Africa:

The main obstacles to women's emancipation is the pervasive influence of traditional social attitudes and customs, deeply rooted in what are referred to in some cases as the feudal, patriarchal system (quoted in O'Neil, 1992, p. 69).

Areas of concern

A number of factors can help to explain the slow progress outlined above.

The deteriorating economic situation and structural adjustment policies Since the end of the International Decade for

Women in 1985 Africa has experienced very severe economic difficulties. These have

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Fig. 2. African labour force participation rates 1990-91: females as a percentage of males. Source: as Fig. 1.

necessitated the adoption of stabilisation and most (Cornis et al, 1988; Afshar and Dennis, adjustment policies sponsored by the IMF and 1992; Woodward, 1992; Costello et al, 1994). The World Bank. Virtually every country in sub- economic crisis and subsequent adjustment Saharan Africa has had to adjust and liberalise its policies have undone much of the progress made economy. The result has been a reduction in in the Decade, especially with reference to the spending on social services such as health and social welfare of women and children. The education, the scrapping of subsidies on food and evidence is that since the late 1980s infant agricultural inputs and a push to increase export mortality rates have been increasing in many production. Such policies have adversely affected African countries and school enrolments, all members of society, but there is mounting especially of girls, have been falling. Such trends evidence that women and children are suffering are very worrying. The African economic crisis

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has delayed the implementation of many of the goals of the Decade.

A lack of commitment by African governments and aid donors Despite a lot of words and good intentions, commitment by African governments and aid donors to the goals of the Decade has been weak. Women have not been brought more fully into the political system. African women occupy only a minute number of decision-making positions. Although women's ministries and bureaux have been set up in many countries they are often simply gestures to the Decade and are isolated from the seemingly more prestigious ministries of agriculture and finance. Few anti-discriminatory laws have been enacted, with customary law hardly affected by the declarations of the Decade. Patriarchy still rules supreme in rural sub-Saharan Africa despite the International Decade for Women and all that it represented.

Even in the aid community commitment has been lacking. A review of the aid policies of the 21 OECD countries shows that in 1994 only eight had a 'reasonable* commitment to women/gender issues with three countries making no commitment at all (Table 3). In the 18 countries with some commitment and the multilateral aid

donors, women and gender issues are still very much an 'add on' (Moser, 1993). They are the 'politically correct thing to do', but the small numbers of staff employed and the minute funds committed to these programmes and the support by these donors of adjustment programmes, discussed above, are testimony to the lack of commitment over the last 20 years.

Changing gender and age roles The acceptance and simplification of gender roles by policy-makers and planners has confirmed the subordinate role of women within society. By targeting these roles and helping women perform them better, they have been confirmed as 'women's work'. Thus women's subordinate roles

have been endorsed, making it harder for African women to demand a more equal gender division of labour (Wieringa, 1994).

There has also been little recognition of the dynamic nature of gender roles. In sub-Saharan Africa gender and age roles are changing, particularly in the context of economic adversity and social disturbance. For example, increasing male migration has resulted in many households having de facto female heads; in some areas these are estimated to account for as many as 40 per cent of all households. Yet such women, although

Source: compiled from Randel and German (1994).

running a household and farming unit, have no protection under the law with respect to land ownership and access to credit. High morbidity and mortality from AIDS has also resulted in changing roles within the household, with younger people, mainly girls, having to perform reproductive and productive roles rather than go to school.

A simple example of this misunderstanding of the changing roles within the household comes from rural Gambia. Here agencies have for many years been installing boreholes with foot or hand pumps to provide communities with sources of clean safe water. It was assumed by the donors that adult women were the main porters of water in these communities. However, with increasing workloads in the fields, women are delegating the collection of water to girls, who find the pumps too heavy and difficult to use, giving them back and shoulder problems. Many girls therefore prefer to use the less safe 'bucket and rope' wells.

Practical versus strategic gender needs The bifurcation of women's needs into practical or strategic has not been helpful, and is in fact artificial. Women's practical roles (and hence needs) within society are often a reflection of their subordinate position within a patriarchal community. It is therefore difficult to address women's practical needs successfully without confronting women's engendered position within society. This can partly explain the failure of many projects.

The Jahaly-Pacharr rice irrigation project in The Gambia is often quoted as an example of how a well-intentioned project to improve rice output, which is a predominantly female crop in Gambia, disenfranchised women from their user rights and returned the improved land to men.

TableS

Commitment to women/gender and development In the aid programmes of OECD donor countries

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Sealed well operated by hand pump, The Gambia

However, field investigation by the author has shown that it was not the project which disenfranchised women, but their own husbands. The project managers handed back the improved land to the village in the expectation that traditional gender roles and user rights would be respected. In fact the men of the villages redefined the land as village land and hence it became the property of men, who are not rice growers. Women were furious and refused to work on the improved rice fields, instead seeking less productive and more distant plots not associated with the scheme. The issue was taken

up by the Women's Bureau and a television programme was broadcast in the UK (The Lost Harvest). The planners and policy-makers were blamed and eventually women got back some rights to their land. This example shows the danger of trying to satisfy practical needs whilst ignoring women's strategic needs. The reason that women were disenfranchised was their

subordination, lack of education and their limited political power Within the household and community. It was, with hindsight, an inevitable outcome.

The way forward: 'gender and development' not 'women and

development'

Until recently, African women have been regarded by policy-makers and planners alike as a target group who need 'developing'. But African women are not a separate group, they are an

essential part of a community and are complementary to men. They therefore cannot be dealt with in isolation. We need to focus on their

social relations with men, and must remember that men are engendered also (Baylies and Bujra, 1993; Wieringa, 1994). Households and communities operate through 'co-operative conflict' and therefore gender relationships and power must be understood if women's position in society and the development process is to be improved. Perhaps we should not be concentrating on 'women in development' as much as 'gender and development' (Rathgeber, 1990). Such an approach is now gaining ground amongst the aid community. In its 1994 annual report the World Bank states:

... the best way to ensure that women are not left at the margin of the development process is to analyse the relative roles and responsibilities of both men and women and to apply the insights gained from this analysis to the design of projects and programs. This new approach, which focuses on gender relations in the family and in the community rather than on women in isolation, constitutes the 'gender and development' approach. This is the focus that the Bank is now promoting to enhance women's participation in development (World Bank, 1994b, p. 37).

The implication is that within the gender and development approach, women's strategic needs will be addressed and that discrimination against women will be tackled, as requested 20 years ago by the Decade. Certainly women in sub-Saharan Africa are a neglected dimension in development and will continue to be so until gender-aware strategies are adopted by planners and policy- makers and women's subordinate position within society is addressed.

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Dr H.R. Barrett is Senior Lecturer in the Geography Division of the School of Natural and Environmental

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