Human Rights of Women
A few months ago, the Women and Gender Development Directorate at the African Union launched the African Women's Decade in Nairobi – 10 good years dedicated to defend women’s rights across the continent. Thousands of people gathered at the Kenyatta International Conference Center (KICC) to witness what many consider a new era in the funding of women empowerment projects under the simple, but carefully crafted theme: ‘Grassroots approach to gender equality and women's empowerment’.
Special focus will be on ten areas. These include women’s economic empowerment; increased access to agricultural land, farm inputs, credit, technology, market and water access to achieve food security; improved women’s health to reduce maternal mortality and address HIV/Aids; as well as parity in education at all levels and in political and electoral processes.
What prompted the AU to initiate the African Women’s Decade was the need to rescue gender issues from being dropped from member states’ budget lines altogether.
Many countries, including Tanzania, had significantly cut the amounts allocated to gender equality and women empowerment programmes. There were fears that budget for gender issues would actually vanish, even with overseas development assistance.
Tanzania for example, was the first to announce a 25 per cent budget cut in early 2009. Yet government budgets are the largest single source of financing for gender equality and women's empowerment in most countries, according to Unifem’s 2008 Progress of the World's Women report.
Dedicating a whole 10 years to generate attention to women empowerment is a good idea. However, already there indications that for the majority of women in Africa, especially in rural areas, life will still be the same. And there is more than enough reason for one to be pessimistic.
Firstly, there are genuine fears that with the new challenges in the form of rising inflation and a looming food crisis in the region, there won’t be enough money to implement the initiative. The high cost of living in East Africa fuelled by a sharp rise in fuel in recent months, for example, is likely to force governments to avert a potential crisis by giving more attention to what politically are ‘more bread and butter’ issues.
In Uganda there are riots caused by the rising cost of living. In Kenya and Tanzania there is disgruntlement and despair over rising fuel prices and power crisis, respectively. Who then, will push our governments to work harder on women’s issues? At a time like this, who will ensure that they channel more money to the African Fund for Women, which will finance the ambitious programme?
Major financing sources for the Fund will be member state contributions and donor funding, according to AU Communications and Information Division. Donors might help provide the funds, but the truth remains that donor funds often come with strings attached. The question is: Will they also prioritise working on areas relevant to the needs of our women during this decade, or will they, as usual, want governments to follow what they want? Ends