Table of Contents
Introduction
I. Coordination machinery and strategies
II. Strategies and mechanisms for monitoring and
evaluating the implementation of the Platforms for Action
III. Women and decision-making
IV. Mobilising resources for implementing the
Platforms for Action
V. Strategies and mechanisms for accelerating
the integration of a gender approach in policies, planning and
programming
VI. HIV/AIDS and its Implications for Women's
Empowerment
Introduction
The African Plan of Action was formulated within the framework
of the mid-decade review of the implementation of the Dakar
and Beijing Platforms for Action (PFA). That review was conducted
through the Sixth African Regional Conference on Women, held
from 22 to 26 November 1999 at the United Nations Economic Commission
for Africa (ECA), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The review was conducted
in the form of national progress reports that were prepared
by the Governments of most African countries, with inputs from
all the actors involved in implementing the action plans. Evaluation
reports were also prepared by the Organisation of African Unity,
the Africa Development Bank, non-governmental organisations,
ECA and the United Nations specialised agencies. The reports
demonstrated great commitment to implementing the action plans
that came out of the Dakar and Beijing conferences.
Most countries have allocated both financial and human resources
to implementing national plans of action. They have registered
success in the past four to five years in such areas as increased
school enrolment of girls, wider areas of coverage of health
services, creation of women's groups for solidarity and collaboration,
wider coverage of awareness-raising campaigns and programmes
with regard to women's human rights, establishment of micro-credit
schemes, and expansion of adult literacy programmes. At least
15 of the reporting countries had formulated comprehensive national
gender policies to guide other sectors in incorporating gender
concerns in their policies, plans, and programmes. For the most
part, the national plans of action included activities beyond
the mid-decade review.
The evaluation reports were also explicit about the problems
encountered in the implementation process. In some cases, they
suggested ways of confronting these problems during the next
phase. The African plan of Action that follows addresses the
most frequently raised problems with a view to providing a framework
within which the problems can be resolved.
Conceptual overview
It is now five years since the Dakar PFA was adopted. In the
intervening period, since the Beijing Conference, there have
been a number of new developments and commitments made, which
provide a new context for formulation of the African Plan of
Action for the next five years. Some of these developments include
the many and relevant recommendations emanating from the World
Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II, Istanbul, 1996),
and more recently (June 1999), the conclusions and recommendations
of the third meeting of the Follow-up Committee on the Implementation
of the DND and the ICDP-POA adopted by UNGASS in June 1999.
The combined impact of past macro-economic policies and globalisation
has resulted in a number of adverse consequences. These include
overall social dislocation and increased numbers of people living
below the poverty line. In many African countries, women continue
to carry increasingly large burdens of responsibility for the
poor, aged, orphaned children and the sick. Poor women and orphaned
children head many households. The family is ordinarily the
primary source of economic and social protection for those who
cannot support themselves because of disability, illness, old
age, inflation, low wages, unemployment, or displacement. Unfortunately,
urbanisation and its accompanying lifestyles, coupled with the
poverty that has resulted from the poor performance of most
African economies, have left the traditional African social
welfare system weakened and ineffective. The burden therefore
falls disproportionately on women, who have to assume greater
responsibility for the care of the poor and the helpless, in
addition to other productive and reproductive roles.
These experiences require policy shifts from a single-factor
approach to a more comprehensive, multisectoral approach to
people's wellbeing and security. Governments should consider,
as a matter of priority, innovative actions to respond to this
growing problem. In view of the urgency of this matter, governments
should consider setting up new mechanisms where they do not
exist and strengthening existing ones. Some countries have made
a start in this direction.
Such measures are strongly recommended to run parallel to poverty
alleviation programmes, in order to lighten the heavy responsibilities
that women carry to maintain those unable to care for themselves.
It is against the background of these major structural shifts,
which offer opportunities and challenges, that this plan should
be interpreted.
Statement of mission
The African Plan of Action is proposed to help implement the
Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action through national, subregional
and African plans of action. It is a synthesis of strategies
and mechanisms proposed to address and resolve a number of issues
that, in the past five years, have been identified as posing
serious constraints to implementing the Dakar and Beijing Platforms
for Action.
The issues fall in six categories:
While most countries had drawn comprehensive national plans
of action for implementing the platforms, few had defined concrete
strategies for co-ordinating the activities that were actually
implemented by a range of actors in a variety of sectors. Duplication
of effort and consequent waste of precious resources at the
expense of the targeted beneficiaries was a major concern in
most countries. Although there was an attempt to assign the
co-ordinating role to a particular structure in some countries,
these structures, for the most part, lacked the necessary mandate
or the accompanying tools and resources to carry out their role
effectively.
Yet another weakness that was linked to the national plans
of action was that they omitted well-defined mechanisms for
monitoring and evaluating the implementation process, which
should be predicated on a clearly formulated set of indicators.
In the absence of such a mechanism, it was impossible to gauge
accurately the level of progress made and thus correct the process
as necessary.
Practically all countries were silent on the issue of accountability.
While commitment to implementing the Dakar and Beijing Platforms
was explicit, as demonstrated by declarations and resolutions
the Governments adopted, the national reports were silent on
the issue of accountability to the people who were supposed
to be the beneficiaries of the Platforms. Silence in this sense
leads to negligence and lip service, which safeguard the status
quo at the expense of the advancement of women, gender equality,
and sustainable development.
In the platforms for action, gender mainstreaming in policies,
plans, and programmes in all sectors was accepted as the most
effective strategy for achieving gender parity. This strategy
places on all sectors the responsibility for implementing the
platforms. Unfortunately, few countries to date have either
formulated comprehensive national gender policies or drawn up
gender-sensitive sectoral policies. At the same time, the presence
of women in critical masses at decision-making levels continues
to be elusive, thus pushing back even further the likelihood
of a demand for accountability. It is imperative to ensure that
those who attain decision-making positions have the necessary
leadership skills and the capacity to analyse and evaluate policy
and programmes from a gender perspective.
Countries implementing the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for
Action and their vision of equality, development, and peace,
have encountered a preponderant shortage of resources due to
lack of access and control of those resources at the individual,
national, subregional, and regional levels. Existing legislation,
economic liberalisation policies, privatisation, debt repayments,
Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs), and world trade terms
respond unfavourably to the interests of the marginalized and
the underprivileged in Africa, particularly women. Large and
widening economic inequalities have resulted in insecurity,
squalor, and inefficiencies, and they have undermined family
systems, thus running the risk of institutionalising poverty.
Recent reports show that the world's wealthiest 16 per cent
uses 80 per cent of the world's natural resources. Yet, the
African Charter on Human and People's Rights guarantees all
people the right to "freely dispose of their wealth and
natural resources . . . at their exclusive interest in no case
shall a people be deprived of it" (article 21.1).
In the recent past, a number of emerging issues have become
pervasive and life threatening to the entire African society.
Governments and the entire population must address them directly
and decisively. Two of the issues, HIV/AIDS and the problem
of the needy and helpless, pose particular threats due to their
magnitude and far-reaching effects. In most African countries,
the level of poverty is growing annually as the number of people
who are living below the poverty line increases by the millions.
The strength of the extended family to take care of these people,
a role that largely falls on women, has been eroded to bare
bones as evidenced by the number of street children and beggars
of all ages in the cities. The question of where the responsibility
lies for helping the victims of HIV/AIDS and of poverty must
be answered and acted upon as a matter of urgency, before the
situation is accepted as a normal way of life and eventually
becomes the demise of Africa.
The African Plan of Action examines the issues outlined above
within the context of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action
and the priorities selected for focus by the different actors.
It proposes a framework within which strategies and mechanisms
for addressing them can be put in place and activated, nationally,
subregionally, and regionally. The ultimate goal of the African
Plan of Action is, therefore, to accelerate implementation of
the Platforms for Action in the next five years, after which
time, the accomplishments of the decade since the Beijing Conference
will be evaluated.
[Top]
I. Coordination machinery and strategies
Justification
Governments have committed themselves to implement the Dakar
and Beijing Platforms. NGOs, United Nations specialised agencies
and other structures are also contributing to the exercise locally,
nationally, subregionally, regionally, and internationally.
Since the Beijing Conference, many structures have been set
up at every level to promote gender equality. Member States
have made efforts to involve their institutions in formulating
policies, programmes and plans with a view to translating the
Dakar and Beijing Platforms into action. This poses a problem
in eliciting the participation and co-operation of the myriad
institutions of Government, civil society, the private sector,
and NGOs. The national, subregional, and regional institutions
suffer from ill-defined statutes and mandates, lack of skills
in gender analysis, inadequate financing and equipment, centralised
authority, poor capacity to mobilise, an unprofessional approach
to the issue of gender, and lack of co-ordination.
The multiplicity of structures and actors, diversity of strategies
pursued, and poor co-ordination of activities constitute obstacles
to both harmonious implementation of national plans of action
and realistic evaluation. Each of the countries has to develop
strategies and machinery for co-ordinating gender activities,
to promote smooth implementation, follow up, and evaluation
but also remedial action and better planning. Indeed, the implementation
of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms would be easier if all players
established close links and shared information.
Vision
Each member State regularly attempts to co-ordinate, through
appropriate machinery located either in the Office of the President
or the Office of the Prime Minister or any other highest-level
office, the different activities conducted to promote gender
equality among the various actors under the 12 critical areas
of concern. Co-ordination makes it possible to avoid duplication
of effort, save time and resources, and maximise impact.
Strategic objectives
At the national level:
1. Establish a National Consultative and Co-ordinating Committee
at the highest-executive level of the State, which will decide
the composition. Ministries and actors including the civil society
would be represented on this committee, whose responsibility
should be to design, co-ordinate, monitor, and evaluate the
implementation of official commitments. The committee would
be vested with the authority to enforce compliance with all
official commitments and ensure that they are implemented.
2. Build and enhance the capacity of the National Consultative
and Co-ordinating Committee for gender and development.
3. Circulate official policy, programme, and planning documents
among the partners.
4. Build or enhance the capacity of the United Nations agencies
in each country to interact with the NC-CC.
At the subregional level:
5. Create or strengthen a gender mechanism responsible for
following up the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action in each
intergovernmental organisation (IGO).
At the regional level:
6. Strengthen the capacity of the existing gender structures
in the regional IGOs to facilitate their role in following up
implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action.
Strategic actions
National level
1. Establish a National Consultative and Co-ordinating Committee
for promotion of gender equality.
2. Provide gender training for all national, bilateral and
multilateral development partners.
3. Establish, under the leadership of the UN resident co-ordinator
system, a consultative and co-ordinating mechanism for United
Nations agencies to support the implementation of the Platform
for Action. This mechanism will provide technical and financial
support to the national follow-up teams responsible for monitoring
the implementation of the Platforms.
4. Have United Nations agencies lead, in co-ordination with
national, subregional and regional organisations, capacity building
of gender analysis and related skills.
Subregional level:
1. Create or strengthen a gender mechanism responsible for
overseeing follow - up of the Dakar and Beijing PFA in each
subregional IGO. Such a mechanism should be placed at a sufficiently
high level to influence decision-making directly and ensure
adequate resource allocation to the programmes and activities.
2. Subregional IGOs should work closely with the ECA Subregional
Development Centres ( SRDCs) to ensure complementary planning,
programme delivery and co-ordination.
Regional level:
7. Strengthen the status and the human and financial resources
of gender units in ADB, ECA, and OAU, to facilitate their role
in co-ordinating, monitoring, and evaluating the implementation
of the Platforms for Action.
8. Strategically locate the gender equality promotion mechanisms
within OAU, ECA and ADB as close to the policy-making level
as possible to enable them to influence policy directly.
9. Establish an institutional mechanism at ministerial level
within the framework of the Treaty Establishing the African
Economic Community to promote, monitor and evaluate gender equality.
10. Member States are responsible for providing resources for
gender mainstreaming.
Actors
Members and officials of governmental, intergovernmental, United
Nations agencies, NGOs, civil society, and private sector officials,
by becoming effectively involved, have an important role to
play in promoting gender equality.
Indicators
· Establishment and operation of National Consultative
and Co-ordinating Committees for the promotion of gender equality.
· Number of people and structures trained in the gender
approach.
· Number of people and structures receiving official
documents.
· Existence and efficient operation of a gender mechanism
in each subregional IGO.
· The number of programmes monitored and evaluated by
the gender focal points of ADB, ECA and OAU.
Time frame
For the coming four years, each country should have an operational
consultative and coordinating committee for the promotion of
gender equality and a consultative and coordinating mechanism
in United Nations country offices to support the implementation
of national plans of action.
Resources
Member States, together with development partners including
bilateral and multilateral cooperation, should take responsibility
at the national, subregional and continental level to provide
resources for gender mainstreaming projects.
[Top]
II. Strategies and mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating
the implementation of the Platforms for Action
Justification
Through the Addis Ababa Declaration on the African Platform
for Action on Women in June 1995, the African Heads of State
and Government "declared their solemn commitment to the
principles, objectives and priorities enshrined in the African
Platform for Action". They also reaffirmed that "the
implementation of the African Platform for Action is the primary
responsibility of African Governments and peoples". In
this connection, they asked ADB, ECA, and OAU to "closely
monitor the implementation of the Platform and to submit periodic
reports thereon to the Council of Ministers and to [their] Conference".
Similarly, the Governments participating in the Fourth World
Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 committed themselves
"to implement the [Beijing] Platform for Action, ensuring
that a gender perspective is reflected in all policies and programmes".
They also recognised that "it is essential to design, implement
and monitor effective, efficient and mutually reinforcing gender-sensitive
policies and programmes at all levels that will foster the empowerment
and advancement of women".
Unfortunately, although most countries have already formulated
and started to implement their national action plans, they have
not been as efficient in creating mechanisms to monitor how
the implementation process evolves so that they can evaluate
it periodically. The national action plans in most of the reporting
countries lack indicators to measure movement towards the defined
objectives, or at best, the indicators have been inconsistently
defined. It therefore becomes impossible to estimate progress
made towards the overall goal of mainstreaming gender as a strategy
towards sustainable development, equality, and peace. For a
comprehensive solution to this problem, each country needs to
develop ways to monitor and evaluate how well the platforms
for action are being implemented.
Vision
Each country monitors annually and every five years evaluates
the implementation of the platforms for action through a clearly
defined mechanism with concrete indicators for each of the 12
critical areas of concern.
Strategic objectives
At the national level
1. Constitute a national technical team of experts in each
country, which will define clear indicators in the 12 critical
areas of concern by which it will regularly monitor and evaluate
the implementation progress.
At the subregional level
2. Ensure that the subregional IGOs develop appropriate tools
with which to monitor and evaluate performance in gender mainstreaming.
At the regional level
3. Ensure that the regional institutions have monitoring and
evaluation tools that they use regularly in following up their
implementation performance.
Strategic actions
National level
1. Identify and, where possible, appoint staff specially in
all the 12 sectors for the national technical team , trained
in:
· Formulating indicators for measuring progress made
in the implementation process;
· Analysing policies and programmes to ensure that
gender concerns are integrated into monitoring and evaluation
processes.
2. Formulate monitoring and evaluation tools.
3. Monitor annually the implementation process and mid-term
and biennial evaluation of progress made in the implementation.
Subregional and regional levels
4. Monitor and evaluate teams within the IGOs and regional
institutions selected and trained in:
· Formulating indicators for measuring progress made
in the implementation process;
· Analysing policy and programme to ensure that gender
concerns are integrated into monitoring and evaluation processes.
5. Formulate monitoring and evaluation tools.
6. Monitor annually the implementation process and biennial
evaluation of progress made in gender mainstreaming.
7. The follow up mechanism for the implementation and monitoring
of the African Platform for Action should be accelerated by
the formation of a joint secretariat comprising the OAU, ADB,
ECA. The OAU shall have responsibility of chairing the secretariat
which shall work out precise modalities of co-ordination among
the three organisations
Actors
· Selected staff from sectors representing each of the
12 critical areas of concern appointed by the highest authority
within Government ministries who come together to constitute
one national technical team for monitoring and evaluating the
implementation process. Evaluation and monitoring teams in IGOs
and regional institutions (ADB and OAU).
· Trainers in formulation of indicators, policy analysis
for gender audit, and monitoring and evaluation processes. ECA
and the African Centre for Women (ACW) should train them in
collaboration with OAU, ADB, other UN agencies, and subregional,
regional, bilateral and multilateral training institutions.
Time frame
In the next four years, each country should have a trained
national follow-up team that conducts monitoring and evaluation
exercises for the national evaluation report due in 2004.
Resources
The cost should be shared among Governments, which should provide
the team members, host the training workshops and carry out
the monitoring and evaluation exercises. ECA should take a leading
role among UN, bilateral and multilateral agencies and the subregional
and regional training institutions, in formulating and implementing
the training programme.
[Top]
III. Women and decision-making
Justification
Comprehensive development can happen only when women achieve
better social, economic, and political status and take active
part in the management of public affairs. In most countries,
women are under-represented at every level of administration
in the public or private sector. They account for less than
10 per cent of the legislature. Discriminatory attitudes and
practices, family responsibilities, low income, little education,
lack of self-confidence, the inability to control their sexuality
and reproductive roles, and the non-competitiveness of women
leaders all combine to prevent women from attaining positions
of power. It is therefore the responsibility of each State to
take the measures required to create an enabling environment
that will allow women to participate more in development, enhance
the capacities of women leaders and achieve social justice.
Vision
Each country is supposed to have concrete, timebound and effective
institutional framework for promoting equal gender representation
in decision-making bodies in the public and private sector,
the legislature and political parties, and in international
organisations.
Strategic objectives
1. Increase the number of women in political and decision-making
positions.
2. Promote affirmative action to reduce gender disparities in
decision-making organs.
3. Provide women with the opportunity to participate in decision-making.
4. Increase the capacity of women in decision-making.
5. Promote democratic values, liberty, gender equality and separation
of powers.
6. Develop gender sensitivity in all decision-making processes
and at all levels.
Strategic actions
National level
1. Ensure that there is an irreversible critical mass of women
in decision-making positions.
2. Ensure that professional women from relevant fields constitute
at least 33 per cent of the national delegations attending all
statutory meetings, nationally and internationally.
3. Ensure that men at technical and decision-making level constitute
at least 33 per cent of the national delegations for statutory
meetings to discuss gender and women issues at national and
international levels.
4. Train for capacity building in leadership skills.
Subregional level
5. Provide women with equal opportunities to head subregional
IGOs. An effective search for candidates should be built into
the normal recruitment process.
6. Ensure that, at all times, at least 50 per cent of the managers
of the technical departments in the IGO are women.
Regional level
7. Make a concerted effort to ensure that women candidates
are promoted to decision-making positions in OAU and women candidates
are supported for the post of the Secretary-General of OAU.
8. Build into the recruitment policy an effective search for
qualified female and male candidates for the posts of Secretary-General,
assistant secretaries-general and technical directors.
9. When the Secretary-General is a man, ensure that 50 per
cent of assistant secretaries-general are women, or vice versa.
10. In the soon-to-be-established African parliament, ensure
that at least 33 per cent of the parliamentarians are women.
11. Ensure that women constitute at least 50 per cent of decision-makers
in the soon-to-be-established African Monetary Fund, the African
Court of Justice and the African Central Bank.
The Organisation of African Unity should in particular:
a. Devise mechanisms that facilitate and ensure women's participation
in the electoral process of the Pan-African Parliament, or their
appointment to these new structures (the African Central Bank,
the African Monetary Union, the African Court of Justice) and
other leadership areas.
b. Ensure equal access to and full participation of women in
the preparation of the constitutional legal texts of the Union
and all the related structures.
c. Ensure that women's interests are taken into account and
their perspective incorporated in the constitutional legal texts
of the Union and all the related structures.
d. OAU and ECA should strive to involve the African Women Committee
on Peace and Development in implementation of the Sirte plan
of action.
Actors
Governments bear responsibility for promoting women to decision-making
positions.
Indicators
· The number of women in decision-making positions at
national, subregional, and regional levels increased to at least
33per cent;
· Gender policies formulated;
· Legislation put in place;
· Gender-sensitive programmes designed;
· Recruitment policies and effective mechanisms for
women candidates put in place;
· Training programmes instituted.
Time frame
In the coming four years, Governments should take adequate
institutional measures to promote the advancement of women into
decision-making positions.
Resources
The necessary resources for establishing and operating these
structures should come from governments, NGOs, civil society
organisations and bilateral and multilateral development partners.
[Top]
IV. Mobilising resources for implementing the Platforms
for Action
Justification
Insufficient resources continue to present an important constraint
in implementing the platforms. Practically all the reporting
countries cited this as a critical obstacle; similarly, it has
been declared responsible for the low implementation rate of
the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies. Yet it is also a fact
that there are enormous quantities of national resources, a
great deal of which nationals take out of the continent for
external spending or banking. Conversely, large quantities of
financial resources enter the continent in different ways and
for various purposes without seeming to make much difference
to the perpetual cry of shortage. The issue of access and control
of both external and internal resources therefore needs to be
examined in depth in light of its crucial position in successfully
implementing the Platforms for Action.
The high debt burden coupled with structural reforms in most
African countries has affected the implementation of the Dakar
and Beijing Platforms for Action. In most African countries,
civil service reforms, and cutbacks in social sector budgets
have led to decline in the resources allocated to the implementation
of the Platforms for Actions. Consequently, these problems have
had devastating multiplier effects, especially on programmes
aimed at poverty alleviation, since most countries have to give
more priority to debt servicing.
Yet, States are entitled to "undertake to eliminate all
forms of foreign economic exploitation, particularly that practised
by international monopolies so as to enable their peoples to
fully benefit from the advantages derived from their national
resources" (article 21.5).
The problem of access to and control of resources applies equally
to resources that originate from external sources such as loans
or grants. Their distribution and utilisation is often perceived
as neither transparent nor equitable. Moreover, women benefit
least from them, due to their absence in positions of decision-making
and their limited access to and control of credit and productive
resources due to socio-cultural causes.
African governments have the moral responsibility and the protective
role to eliminate the current situation of large inequalities
and the human misery aggravated by poverty because people have
lost their access to and control of their national resources.
They have the responsibility to create political, economic,
and social stability by facilitating the exploitation of available
national resources to shape the future of the nations for the
benefit of the people. They need to formulate policies that
will reconcile the imperatives of global markets with the national
needs of the people, their welfare, cohesion, and the assurance
of increased participation of women in decision-making at all
levels.
Vision
In the planning period, to attain an increase in the rate of
national wealth creation, while preserving national resources
and equitable distribution of the benefits of economic and social
growth and development. This will forestall further impoverishment
of the poor and the powerless, particularly women.
Strategic objectives
At national level
1. Engender budgeting and macro-economic planning processes
to ensure that adequate resources are allocated to accelerate
implementation of the African and Global PFAs.
2. Reinforce the capacity to absorb and manage the resources
allocated to implementation of the Beijing and Dakar Platforms
for Action.
At the regional level
3. Mobilise external resources from bilateral and international
partners for successful implementation of the PFA, including
resources from debt cancellation and conversion.
4. Advocate for the strengthening of funding agencies such
as UNIFEM that are mandated to support women and gender programmes.
Strategic actions
To achieve the above objectives, governments should:
1. Ensure that privatisation increases the number of national
stakeholders and owners in the national economy through empowerment
and fair competition in wealth creation for the nations. To
this end, governments should find a way to retain enterprises
that are fully or partially privatised, until a critical mass
of nationals, including women, are financially in a position
to purchase and run them profitably. Governments should ensure
that women have access to ownership and management of businesses,
within the context of privatisation. This was successfully done
in Malaysia and in the Association of South East Asian Nations
(SEAN) countries that have indigenized privatisation.
2. Link negotiations for terms of debt repayment, including
debt relief, with resources for implementation of the Platforms
for Action, in order to recycle debt relief for gender mainstreaming.
3. Develop and strengthen gender budgeting and macroeconomic
planning mechanisms to ensure funding for activities carried
out to implement the PFAs.
4. Where there is no specific target and/or less than one per
cent is currently being allocated, intergovernmental, subregional
and regional economic structures and civil society organisations
should alleviate at least 1 per cent of their total annual budget
for women- and gender-related activities. UN agencies that have
set targets for resource allocation for gender mainstreaming
and advancement of women should set a time frame and undertake
to implement their commitments in this regard.
Actors
The actors are the governments, the national committees, the
NGOs, the civil society and other collaborating institutions
at national and international levels.
Indicators
Indicators include the level of budget allocation for Platform
for Action implementation.
Time frame
In the next two years each country should have developed and
strengthened its gender budget and macro-economic planning mechanisms,
and in the next four years each country should have developed
and strengthened other resource mobilisation mechanisms.
Mechanisms and structures
The national co-ordination committee should be responsible
for promoting and monitoring mobilisation of resources from
the sources stipulated above. The committee should also determine
the financial needs for implementation of the Platforms for
Action in different sectors.
[Top]
V. Strategies and mechanisms for accelerating the integration
of a gender approach in policies, planning and programming
Justification
Gender is a social construct linked to the norms of a given
society. It constitutes a variable for differentiating, organising,
and structuring social roles and relationships. In describing
such societal roles and responsibilities, gender analysis facilitates
taking into account the economic and social roles of women and
men and effectively integrates their specific constraints and
strengths in development activities. Using a gender approach,
a community can conduct activities that promote equal participation
of men and women in its development at the same time as it achieves
an equitable sharing of resources. For Africa to develop sustainably,
its men and women must participate equally, but lopsided appropriation
of resources and prevailing social norms do not allow women
to play their role in development fully or to reap the benefits
for their own wellbeing.
In adopting the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action, member
States committed themselves to working for gender equality.
They should therefore effectively integrate the gender approach
in national policies, planning, programming, and evaluation
with a view to achieving the set objectives. Five years since
the adoption of the regional platform, however, there is still
a long way to go to integrate the gender approach systematically
in national policies, planning, programming, and project evaluation.
This weakness is evident both in the state structures and in
the civil society, private sector, and non-governmental organisations.
Some subregional organisations have also taken steps to institutionalise
and mainstream gender into their policies, programmes and activities,
while others are in the process of doing so. These efforts need
to be encouraged and strengthened.
Vision
The public and private sectors and civil society responsible
in each country for implementing the national plan of action
should understand and use the gender approach in programme formulation
and implementation.
Strategic objectives
At national level
1. Promote capacity building for members of the National Consultative
and Co-ordinating Committee for the promotion of gender equality,
the national technical team members of all sectoral committees
or commissions responsible for implementing national plans of
action, and all development partners.
2. Integrate national plans of action in all projects implemented
by national and international partners.
3. Promote a system for collecting gender-disaggregated data
and building related databanks in every ministerial department
and structure responsible for national statistics, planning,
and programming.
At subregional and regional level
4. Promote the mainstreaming of gender concerns, and capacity
building in the policies and programme activities of all subregional
and regional organisations.
Strategic actions
At national level
1. Institutionalise systems for collecting gender-disaggregated
data.
2. Establish gender-disaggregated databanks in the relevant
structures.
3. Provide initial and regular gender training for policy makers,
legislators, planners and programme implementors as well as
development partners.
4. Develop of gender mainstreaming guidelines adapted to national
realities.
At subregional and regional level
5. Develop and strengthen mechanisms for mainstreaming of gender
concerns, and capacity building in the policies, programmes
and activities of all subregional and regional organisations.
Indicators
· Engendered national plans of action;
· Availability of sex-disaggregated data;
· Resources for data collection and analysis;
· Number of policy makers, parliamentarians, legislators
and programme implementors trained;
· Number of training sessions.
Time frame
Over the coming four years, each State should systematically
use the gender approach in all official documents and monitor
their implementation. The National Consultative and Co-ordinating
Committee for the promotion of gender equality is appropriate
for implementing the various measures, with the assistance of
national, bilateral and multilateral development partners and
the national technical team members of sectoral committees or
commissions responsible for implementing national plans of action.
Resources
Implementation of this programme will require a close working
relationship among States, NGOs, civil society organisations
and bilateral and multilateral partners.
[Top]
VI. HIV/AIDS and its Implications for Women's Empowerment
Justification
The HIV/AIDS pandemic is progressively wiping out the post-colonial
gains of public health and economic development efforts of the
last 30 years in Africa. It is ruthlessly killing young people
in the prime of their productive life. Nearly 11 million Africans
have died of AIDS alone, at an average rate of 2 million per
year, and nearly 6000 per day, at a cost of up to $US1000 per
funeral. Infections gallop at the daily rate of 10,000 adults
between 15 to 49 years, mainly women, and 2000 children under
15 years, mainly girls. In this regard, it is noted that the
incubation period in Africa is generally much shorter than the
20 years so far experienced elsewhere. The birth rate, the only
means of replacing the dead and dying, is only 72,000 per day,
and it is declining.
The prevailing neglect, mystery, myths, stigma, prejudice,
and intolerance for a primarily public health concern continue
to fuel the spread of a deadly disease that is contracted primarily
through sexual intercourse, an act central to male and female
relationships. Yet, once again, females find themselves disadvantaged
due to social and economic dependence, and physical and physiological
differences that expose them, more than their male partners,
to infections. Young girls are at greater risk due to some traditional
practices, sexual abuse, forced marriage, prostitution, and
myths that infected men can be cured by having sexual relations
with a virgin, thus exposing the girl to tearing of the genitals,
which accelerates infections. Women with disabilities also are
at a greater risk of STDs and HIV/AIDS infection arising out
of their double marginalization as women and as disabled. Elderly
relatives, with little means or support particularly carry the
burden of orphans. The breadwinners die, families disintegrate,
and poverty and despondency reign.
Although infection rates vary between African countries and
subregions, high mobility within the continent means that no
country will remain unaffected by HIV/AIDS. Prevention is the
key to slowing the spread of AIDS in Africa and curtailing its
ultimate impact - devastation of African populations. Prevention
strategies must address the structures that place the woman
in a disadvantaged position in society and instead empower her
to protect herself and her children. Local resources must be
mobilised to prevent infections and manage health care, not
only to bury the dead.
Vision
The vision of the Plan of Action is to reduce the rate of HIV/AIDS
infections by 50 per cent by 2004 by creating awareness and
reducing the socio-economic devastation of HIV/AIDS.
Strategic objectives
· Increasing resources to fight the disease and its
effects;
· Empowering women socially and economically; and
· Demystifying or removing fear and the sense of mystery
about HIV/AIDS, through realistic information, education and
communication (IEC) programmes in the community.
Strategic actions
To demystify HIV/AIDS and reduce the spread of infection, central
governments have the responsibility to take the following strategic
actions:
1. Formulate or review HIV/AIDS policy to check spread of the
infection and then to eradicate it through non-discrimination,
demystification of the disease, and protection of both the infected
and the uninfected.
2. Set up or strengthen national HIV/AIDS committees or their
equivalents, to develop national HIV/AIDS prevention and control
programmes.
3. Legislate against all discriminatory practices that have
implications on HIV/AIDS, including promoting/regulating the
age of consent and controlling and prohibiting deliberate contamination
of the uninfected by the infected.
4. Promote community-based health care (for example, as in
Zambia), which encourages the infected to live positively within
the community. The approach enhances information, education,
and communication to reduce myths and subsequent isolation.
It also empowers, involves, and protects the woman and caters
for the orphans.
5. Prevent transmission through transfusion of infected blood,
use of contaminated needles, syringes, surgical and dental equipment,
and breast-feeding by infected mothers. To do this, governments
in close collaboration with NGOs, women's groups, the private
sector, and international agencies, should design and implement
programmes and projects for:
· Sensitisation, training and inspections;
· HIV screening and contact tracing to protect public
health, particularly of the high-risk groups, to be determined
at the national level;
· Conducting family life and sex education on the dangers
of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, targeting the
youth;
· Building community associations through age groups
and professional, religious, or other clubs, to facilitate information
interchange and networking and to promote community feeling
and concern for one another. Through these, transmission will
be reduced and the care of those already infected will be intensified
and made more effective;
· Setting up homes and centres (for example, as in Zimbabwe)
to rescue orphans, particularly girls, from defilement, violence,
neglect, or abandonment, and build or reassign hospitals, health
centres, and clinics, under professional and skilled personnel,
to provide health services, including counselling, to the communities;
· Enable countries to investigate and negotiate for a
supply of available testing kits and medicines at a reasonable
cost;
· Safeguard all nationals against unethical practices,
such as drug-testing studies conducted without informed consent.
Women need to be educated, trained, and empowered socially and
economically, with their human rights protected from violation
by one in any way;
· Enable the national HIV/AIDS committee, national women's
groups and organisations, and the civil society to ensure political
will and commitment, such as through lobbying;
· Support applied research by compatriots in Africa using
indigenous or modern methods;
· Conduct educational programmes and sensitisation campaigns,
including counselling for the women and youth on illicit drug-related
issues.
Subregional level
6. Set up or strengthen subregional mechanisms for collective
negotiations for bulk purchase of HIV/AIDS drugs at reduced
costs.
Actors
Actors include individuals, both infected and uninfected; the
community; governments; NGOs; collaborating national, subregional,
regional, and international institutions.
Indicators
Indicators include:
· Number of communities organised and functioning in
the control of HIV/AIDS;
· Number of information, education and communication
groups and clubs;
· Number of health centres, clinics, homes, and hospitals
responding to community health-care and social needs;
· Number of people seeking assistance at these centres;
· Rate of new HIV/AIDS infections;
· Rate of sexually transmitted disease infections;
· Death rates;
· Birth rates;
· Fertility rates and population growth rates;
· Rate of condom use;
· Number of HIV/AIDS rape cases and subsequent convictions;
· Regular monitoring and evaluation of PFA implementation
to eradicate the HIV/AIDS threat by the national multisectoral
teams, which will involve experts in this field.
Resources
Governments have the moral obligation to allocate sufficient
resources to control the pandemic as a matter of priority. Resources
for the community-based approach should be mobilised internally
as well. However, access to available tests and medicines should
be negotiated externally without the conditionalities that distract
nations from their priorities or which encourage external dependence.
Mechanisms and structures
National governments should set up national HIV/AIDS committees
or their equivalents comprising representatives from sectoral
ministries, particularly health, social services, education,
finance, and law enforcement agencies. These committees will
include representation from women's groups, the private sector,
and the civil society. The national committees will form subregional
and regional committees in which they will involve related subregional
and regional organisations to facilitate exchange of information
and monitoring of the cross-border interactions that could influence
control of the spread of the epidemic. National multisectoral
monitoring and evaluation teams should carry out monitoring
and evaluation, and report to the national coordinating and
consultative committees with mandate, status and power for effective
coordination.
[Top]
VII. Access to and contribution towards the provision of
basic goods and services by the women in the African society
Justification
Poverty and lack of control of resources are the main causes
of inequality in African societies where women suffer the most.
With the breakdown of traditional African family support and
increasing poverty, the woman, while still without means, is
overloaded with care of the poor and the needy, besides her
other productive and reproductive responsibilities. The Platform
for Action rightly recognises the multidimensional problem of
poverty with its origins in national and international domains,
continued decline of employment at a faster rate for women than
for men, unsustainable economic growth and deepening interdependence
among nations due to globalisation.
Women have stressed the need for African countries to create
national, subregional and regional markets for national, subregional
and regional products. They have re-affirmed the need for their
workload and the family burdens they carry to be lightened and
to be included in national accounts at macro and micro levels.
The African society must assist them to do so. African governments
have the moral responsibility to lighten women's workload, add
value to their activities, acknowledge women's role in national
development and make their contribution visible. In support,
the PFAs restate the need to empower women to utilise national
and other resources sustainably, with adequate institutional
and financial frameworks and support at all levels.
Vision
National manufacturing, including women's contribution, is
directed towards production and provision of essential goods
and services for African communities through small and medium
industrial enterprises that will provide labour remuneration
and subsequent capital earnings for women. This will be achieved
through total commitment by governments, their partners and
civil societies in the setting up and running of basic industrial
income earning enterprises. New and extended manufacturing programmes
will be up and running in two years. Reduction in poverty among
the women by a minimum of 1 per cent will be achieved at the
end of five years.
Strategic objectives
National governments should aim to:
1. Raise the purchasing power of the communities and that of
women in particular, by creating employment.
2. Industrialise entrepreneurial activities.
3. Achieve self-reliance in the production and provision of
utility goods.
4. Allocate adequate financial and human resources for establishing
indigenous small and medium industrial enterprises.
5. Reduce women's domestic workload.
6. Encourage the private sector to set up small and medium industrial
enterprises in an enabling, protective and supportive environment.
Strategic actions
At national level
To develop small and medium enterprises that will provide paid
employment for women, governments in collaboration with partners
in development should:
1. Formulate policies that will enhance women's participation
in national development and their access to and use of national
resources.
2. Repeal all laws and amend all regulations prohibiting access
to and use by women of national resources for national development.
3. Build capacity for setting up and running small and medium
enterprises, ensuring training in technology, management, marketing
and networking.
4. Provide access to capital and assets for setting up and running
industrial plants that will lighten women's workload and technologically
produce articles required and marketed in African communities.
Funds and credit guarantee schemes should be established to
facilitate this endeavour.
5. Encourage franchises for enterprise development.
At subregional and regional levels
6. Facilitate the establishment of small and medium industries
for the production and provision of utility items in the country,
the subregion and the region.
7. Promote intra-African trade at the subregional and regional
levels within the African Economic community, guiding the location
of different types of enterprises and avoiding duplication and
undue saturation of sections of the markets.
Mechanisms/structures
The National Consultative and Co-ordinating Committee should
ensure that the National Machinery and the Ministry of Industry
facilitate policy formulation, programmes and project design
as well as the development of indigenous small and medium industries
which add value to women's participation in national development.
Actors
The main actors are:
· The national government;
· The private sector, NGOs and IGOs as government partners;
· The civil society;
· The National Consultative and Co-ordinating Committee;
· The National Women's Machinery;
· Women as groups and as individuals;
· International partners.
Monitoring and evaluation
The indicators should include:
· Number and distribution nationally and regionally
of industrial enterprises set up in the planning period;
· Gender-disaggregated data on number of people employed
in new enterprises;
· Gender-disaggregated data on the number of people in
industrial-related, decision-making positions;
· Per capita income by gender;
· Gross national product per year.
Resources
Governments will allocate resources from the national budget.
Governments may seek assistance from partners sympathising with
the principle of empowering women for self-determination in
economic affairs; distinct inputs from UNIDO and ILO are anticipated.
The private sector will be encouraged to set up franchises in
small and medium enterprises that will employ women in various
parts of the country. Women should also be encouraged to use
savings and credit facilities among themselves and in financial
institutions to expand their entrepreneurial activities. Other
sources are national women's banks where they exist and specialised
funds created for reducing poverty among women.
