• Gender Gaps, Disparities, Progress and Setbacks

• What the Statistics Say About the Lives of African Women

• Basic Data

• Education

• Health

• Economic Activity of Women

• The Human Rights of Women and the Girl-Child

• Women in Power and Decision Making

Selected Indicators of the Status of Women in Africa

The need for gender responsive policies and programmes to facilitate the empowerment of women in all countries is highlighted in the Beijing Platform for Action that also calls for special measures to address the critical areas of concern world-wide, for there can be no successful African development policy or genuine economic recovery without pursuing a strategy to enhance the utilization of gender-disaggregated data (GDD) to inform development policy-makers and, where necessary, to bridge the existing information gap.

In this connection, the ACW has considered it important to begin from an assessment of the status of women five years after Beijing using selected indicators that are of great concern to women’s empowerment. No meaningful assessment of progress made since Beijing can be done without statistical evidence and this CD-ROM hopes to serve as an assessment tool in that regard.

Gender gaps, disparities, progress and setbacks:

The compilation of the ACW publications on statistical data on the status of women in Africa have brought out some very interesting issues: that there are glaring gaps in availability of data in some critical areas and also gender disparities in access to resources; but it has also brought out the positive progress made in the areas of health and education where infant and Under 5 mortality rates have been reduced drastically and where access to basic education has more than doubled and in some cases tripled.

Gaps:

‘If development is not engendered, it is endangered’ UNDP, Human Development Report, 1997 (p.7)

The unavailability of data in some critical areas is of major concern. Women’s contribution to the economic sector, more particularly to household and national development, does not appear in the existing sources that have tended to consider the formal sector as the only existing arena of economic activity. There is an urgent need for a gender and people-centered perspective in assessing the contribution of women and the poor, where the majority of women are to be found. African planners and statisticians need to recognize the emerging informal sector and the household/community economy which were until the recent past, not accorded the importance they deserved.

Similarly the work/overwork of the girl-child in households and in the agricultural sector is not recorded. This omission calls for urgent action in providing statistics of girl-child work in order to reveal the reality and hence take the necessary measures to combat the vice.

Gaps also exist in the area of human rights of women. There is need for accurate recording of abuses against the human rights of women and the girl-child, such as battery, rape, FGM, early and forced marriages.

Disparities:

However, what the available data brings out are the disparities between the access to resources and services such as education whereby in some countries the % of female population enrolled in school is about half that of males; power as seen through women’s poor representation in political and economic decision making. For the majority of African countries, representation in Parliament stood at below 10% in 1997 and similarly the percentage of women in the higher echelons of economic decision- making (administrators and managers) is also dismally low. Regarding the fundamental rights of women, the rights to nationality of married women, consent to marriage and registration, these continue to elude women and in about half the countries, young girls are victims of genital mutilation. The data hence help to point out where action is needed. Through giving a historical perspective where possible, the data enable us to assess the progress made by countries in the last 10-15 years to improve the lives of their citizens through provision of basic services such as clean drinking water, health services and sanitation and through facilitating women’s access to education and reduction of infant, under 5 and maternal mortality rates. The data presented here indicate how women are faring in a given area and also how governments are faring in their improvement of women’s situation and empowerment. It is hoped that this publication will also serve as a planning tool through indicating where gender gaps exist and where other countries have been able to fill the same gaps.

WHAT THE STATISTICS SAY ABOUT THE LIVES OF AFRICAN WOMEN

This CD-ROM presents data in some of the key areas of the Platform for Action, which best illustrate the status of women in Africa. These are:

1. Education

2. Health

3. Political Power and Decision-Making

4. Economic Contribution of Women

5. Human Rights of Women

6. The Girl-child

Choice of indicators:

These areas were chosen because it was felt that they best illustrate what the governments and women themselves have achieved or otherwise in the last twenty years or so. Secondly these indicators deal with the issues of access to the very basic resources without which human life loses its dignity.

Basic data:

African statistical development is in poor state especially when it ignores women's contribution to economic development and growth, a factor central to women advancement and gender equality. The data used in the tables cover the period between 1970 and 1998 to show the trends in the status of women. For some indicators, available data are up to 1994. For this exercise, data were not available for all countries for all indicators in the entire period, hence the gaps.

The basic indicators presented in the first table give an overview of each country’s socio-economic situation and serves as the indispensable background upon which women’s situation can be assessed. This table shows the country’s population, GDP and GNP as well as the spending in the various sectors. It also serves as a comparison with other countries on the continent and elsewhere on the country’s rating on the UNDP Human Development Index and Gender Development Index. This shows that a country’s treatment of its women and its poor population is not necessarily linked to its wealth but more to the political will to improve the lot of all the categories of its population.

The general indicators selected are those that offer a clear picture of the country: the population, resources as illustrated by the GDP and GNP, and related spending, e.g. military spending in comparison to spending on education and health. This shows the country’s priorities, and the impact of this prioritization on the social sector. A high spending on non-social sectors implies taking resources from the badly needed and deserving social sectors where women and children are more likely to benefit to the exporting of the resources through importation of arms and through spending in a non-priority sector. Low spending in education usually implies that the services will not reach all the layers of the population; it usually implies a low percentage of children going to school and in essence this implies fewer girls than boys will go to school. This will then lead to high illiteracy rates and low economic status for women and men, hence high fertility rates. If the spending in health is also low, this scenario will entail high infant, under-5 and maternal mortality rates. Hence the need for high government investment in the social sector. For women, it is important to have this information disseminated and also to see the patterns in other countries especially the ones where the social services are functioning well. Women are then able to pressure their governments for a different pattern of utilization of the resources. The process of engendering government spending requires the availability of these data and this is what this publication hopes to provide.

The other interesting feature on this table are the comparative data on government spending in the various areas, as well as governments’ external debt in comparison to the external aid the same government receives. It becomes apparent that African governments are spending much more on servicing external debts than what each actually receives from outside. Beside, the debt burden has increased significantly between 1985 and 1995. Zambia’s debt burden went up from 90.7% of its GNP in 1980 to 204.3% in 1995. The highest debt burden in 1995 is 443.6% for Mozambique followed by 365.8% for Congo up from 99% in 1985 and 353% for Guinea Bissau up from 138% in 1985. Angola’s debt burden stood at 274.9%. The debt burden went up significantly for most of the countries between 1985 and 1995.

In comparison to the debt burden, the Aid received by the countries as percentage of the GNP during the same period is much lower than the amount the country used to service its external debt. For instance,

• Zambia’s debt burden was 204.3% in 1995 while its Aid stood at 20.7% of its GNP .

• Mozambique’s debt burden was 443.6% against its Aid of 101.0% of its GNP

• Congo’s debt burden stood at 365.8% against 24.9% Aid

• Guinea Bissau’s debt burden stood at 353% against 74.3% Aid

• Angola’s debt burden stood at 274.9% against 11% Aid

What does this imply for national development and more particularly for the sectors that affect women most? The column on Military Expenditure as percentage of combined education and health expenditure shows that some countries spend much more on military expenditure than on the social sectors. The following 7 countries show highest military expenditure for the period 1990-91 as percentage of combined education and health expenditure:

• Angola is top with 208%

• Ethiopia 190%

• Mozambique 121%

• Tanzania 77%

• Morocco 72%

• Zimbabwe 66%

• Zambia 63%

As noted above, Angola and Mozambique are heavy military spenders and poor spenders in the social sectors. In Angola in 1995, the female literacy rate was 29% against 56% for men. During the period 1985-95, only 30% of the population had access to health services while 32% had access to safe water. During 1990 to 1996, only 15% of the births were attended by trained health personnel. At the same time the maternal mortality rate stood at 1500 per 100000 live births! And the infant mortality rate at 170 per 1000 live births, and 191 per 1000   for U5MR. It would therefore seem correct to say that high military spending coupled with a heavy debt burden take investment away from the social sectors and women and children suffer a great deal from poor health and unnecessary deaths. Notably, such countries as Algeria, Egypt, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Niger, Sudan and Tunisia, indicate significant reduction in military spending relative to health and education expenditure.

This Basic Data table also includes the percentage of the households that are headed by women and this information would be of utmost importance in situations where access to and control over, resources such as land, credit facilities, power control, is based upon patriarchal norms such as head of household. Unfortunately data are available for only 18 countries for the period covering 1991-1995. In Ghana there are 32% female headed households, 26% in South Africa and 23% in Uganda and Mauritania. This therefore calls for very gender sensitive policies, and programme planning to take into account the needs of these groups that are likely to be forgotten through the traditional approaches.

Similarly, for the population below income poverty line, i.e. 1 US$ a day or National poverty line, data are available for only 30 countries. Of these, 10 have over 50% of the population living below the poverty line, with Guinea Bissau having 87% , Zambia having 84.6%, Sierra Leone with 75%, Madagascar with 72.3%, Gambia with 64%, and Niger with 61.5% . Senegal has 54%, while Kenya, Lesotho and Uganda have 50%. What is worrying with these high figures is the fact that as it is stated above, if  women constitute the majority of the world’s poor, these figures lead us to wonder where women stand in a country where over three-quarters live below the poverty line.

The UNDP Human Development Report 1997 (page 64) indicates that the women experience poverty differently from men and the problem with the feminization of poverty is not so much the numbers of women who are poorer than men but rather with the severity of poverty and the greater hardships women face in lifting themselves and their children out of poverty. In a situation of high levels of illiteracy and lack of access to health care, women are likely to suffer more because they constitute a large percentage of the illiterate in most of the countries and when these services are not accessible, women are likely to find themselves totally crushed by the weight of suffering. In addition they are likely to have fewer job opportunities. If  they are the heads of households under these conditions, probably without access to land or if they do, it is user rights that they have no control of, they are more likely to find themselves on the margins of society than men.

Unfortunately the data on access to and control over land and credit facilities are unavailable for African countries. Their availability would enable a better understanding of the actual situation of women and poverty especially for female headed households.

The following are two indices noted above that have been used for rating the performance of African countries. These are the Human Development Index and Gender-related Development Index.

The gender-related development index measures the achievements in the same dimensions  and variables as HDI does, but takes account of inequality in achievement between women and men, i.e. knowledge – female and male literacy rate, female and male combined enrolment ratio, and decent standard of living – female and male earned income share. The greater the gender disparity in basic human development, the lower a country’s GDI compared with its HDI. The GDI is simply the HDI discounted, or adjusted downwards, for gender inequality.

(Source: UNDP Human Development Report, 1997, p.14)

Education and Health

Education and health are the pre-requisites for almost every facet of human development; without them women and indeed human beings in general, can not enjoy or appreciate the value of the other entitlements. Without education, it is difficult for women to gain information about their fundamental rights and entitlements and where they are informed, illiteracy hinders them comprehending the texts and notions involved. Education is also closely linked to health, to fertility rates and once again the data reveal the fact that only in countries with high female adult literacy rates are women able to control their fertility and hence to influence infant, under 5 and maternal mortality rates.

The percentage of the school-going population currently in school is a good indicator of the country's planning for the present and future. Ideally every country should aim at achieving 100 per cent enrolment and attendance but this is far from the case in a good number of African countries. Low enrolment rates lead to high adult illiteracy rates and to general under-development of the country. Similarly, distribution of school enrolment by sex enables one to see the efforts governments and parents are making to reduce gender gaps in the classrooms. Whereas at the beginning of the primary school cycle there is usually a high percentage of girls, this goes down the higher one goes up the education ladder such that by the end of the secondary school cycle and in the third level/tertiary level, the percentage of girls/women will be very low in many countries. The importance of these data is that they explain the absence of female cadres and the placement of women at the bottom of the hierarchy in almost all the sectors, including political and economic decision-making and in the professional and technical sectors.

EDUCATION

What the Platform says…

Education is a human right and an essential tool for achieving the goals of equality, development and peace. Non-discriminatory education benefits both girls and boys and thus ultimately contributes to more equal relationships between women and men. Equality of access to and attainment of educational qualifications is necessary if more women are to become agents of change… Investing in formal and non-formal education and training for girls and women, with its exceptionally high social and economic return, has proved to be one of the best means of achieving sustainable development and economic growth that is both sustained and sustainable.

What the data reveal:

For 1996:

As far as school enrolment is concerned, Africa’s performance leaves a lot to be desired. Too many children are out of school, wasting away and perhaps creating a time bomb for the continent. In three countries, as many as 80% of the girl-children of primary and secondary school-going age, i.e. 7-19 years, are excluded from school for whatever reason.

In Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso only 20% of girls are in school (80% are out of school) against 70% for boys

• 7 other countries have an enrolment rate of 30%, i.e. 70% out of school

• 4 countries have an enrolment rate of  40%, i.e. 60% out of school

• 6 countries have an enrolment rate of 50%, i.e. 50% out of school

• 5 countries have  a 60% enrolment rate, i.e. 40% out of school

• 1 country has a 70% enrolment rate, i.e. 30% out of school.

Except for Morocco (57%), all the other North African countries have reached 80% as have most of the southern African countries (no accessible data for Malawi; Zambia 58%, Lesotho 76%); Mauritius 84%, Cape Verde 81% and Kenya 66% are the other good performers.

The most glaring gender gaps are to be found in Togo where female enrolment for 1996 is 59% against 92% for boys, a difference of 33 points, followed by Benin with a difference of 28%, Guinea 20%, Gambia 17%, Sierra Leone14%. Insignificant gender gaps are to be found in Kenya 2%, Tanzania 1% and Madagascar 1%. The scale tips in favour of girls in Botswana and South Africa with 3% more for girls, Swaziland with 4% more for girls and Lesotho with 10% more for girls.

 Trends

Positive trends:

Marked progress has been made in a number of countries between 1980 and 1996, notably Algeria which saw a 26% increase for girls and 14% for boys; Egypt 32% for girls and 21% for boys; and Tunisia 34% for girls and 16% for boys.

Negative trends took place in

• Côte d’Ivoire which went down by 1% for girls and 6 for boys

• Kenya went down by 7% for girls and 14% for boys

• Lesotho went down by 7% for girls but went up by 7 % for boys

• Tanzania went down by 12%  for girls and 20 for boys.

Action needed:

Urgent action needs to be taken to reverse this negative trend caused largely by poverty and reduced public expenditure. To do this, countries need to adjust policies that deny women educational opportunities. Countries must invest in formal and informal education and training of girls and women, by allocating budgetary resources to this social sector so central to the achievement of sustainable development, economic growth and poverty reduction.

HEALTH

What the Platform says,

Page 61, par. 104

Statistical data on health are often not systematically collected, disaggregated and analyzed by age, sex and socio-economic status and by established demographic criteria used to serve the interests and solve the problems of subgroups , with particular emphasis on the vulnerable and marginalized and other relevant variables. Recent and reliable data on the mortality and morbidity of women and conditions and diseases particularly affecting women are not available in many countries. Relatively little is known about how social and economic factors affect the health of girls and women of all ages, about the provision of health services to girls and women and the patterns of their use of such services, and about the value of disease prevention and health promotion programmes for women.

What the data say:

As regards health, the data chosen are those which indicate access to basic health services and also show the health status of the nationals of a given country through the life expectancy rate at birth. The areas that most concern women and affect their lives are the provision of basic health services for themselves and for their children. Similarly the size of the population per physician/nursing personnel, the percentage of births attended by trained health personnel, the fertility rate, all have a great bearing on saving lives and preventing infant, under-5 and maternal deaths, as they also do on the overall quality of life of women and the country as a whole. They provide some indication of the countries' health status.

Higher infant and under 5 mortality rates often arise from poverty, poor nutrition and health conditions, having the first baby at an early age and poor health of the pregnant woman. They lead to the mother having to have more babies to replace the lost ones and this in turn leads to high maternal morbidity and mortality rates.

Infant, under 5 and maternal mortality rates remain very high in African countries. Only 15 countries have below 70 infant deaths per 1,000 live births (1996) while their Under-5 Mortality Rate (U5MR) range between 46 and 110. These are mainly countries in North Africa and in southern Africa, and Mauritius.

16 countries have between 70 and 99 while the rest range 100 and 191. The highest infant mortality rates are to be found in

• Niger (191),

• Angola (170),

• Sierra Leone (164),

• Malawi (137) and

• Mali (134).

A comparison between Africa and the other regions:

However, this is one area where significant progress has been made. In almost all the countries, infant and under 5 mortality rates have gone down to below half or one third of the 1960 figures. If they remain high in comparison to other regions, it is because the 1960 figures had been extremely high.

Similarly maternal mortality rates are generally very high in Africa. 15 countries have between 1000 and 1800 per 100,000.

• Sierra Leone 1800

• Somalia 1600

• Guinea 1600

• Angola 1500

• Chad 1500

• Mozambique 1500

• Eritrea 1400

• Ethiopia 1400

• Burundi 1300

• Mali 1200

• Niger 1200

• Senegal 1200

• Uganda 1200

• Gambia 1100

• Nigeria 1000

The great majority of Sub-Saharan African countries range between 600 and 999 while only ten countries have rates below 600:

• Mauritius 120

• Tunisia 170

• Algeria 160

• Egypt 170

• Libya 220

• South Africa 230

• Botswana 250

• Namibia 370

• Swaziland 560

• Zimbabwe 570

However, these rates are still very high in comparison to other regions

Usually the countries with better performance in low infant, U5MR and maternal mortality rate also have access to basic services: over 80% access to safe water, health services and a high percentage of access to sanitation; and they have over 70% births assisted by trained health personnel and low fertility rates. The higher the level of industrialization, the better the rates, a factor not to be ignored.

Hence it becomes clear that better provision of basic services would help to improve the lives of women and their families and to reduce the unnecessary maternal and child deaths. However, the country graphs that follow show that most countries have made significant progress in reducing infant mortality rates between 1960 and 1996 and it is to be hoped that the years to come will show a greater reduction in all the areas.

Action needed:

Countries need to urgently engender health policies through concerted efforts to systematically collect, analyze, disseminate and use comprehensive, accurate, timely and reliable gender disaggregated data to enhance the delivery of health and other social services to the vulnerable and marginalized, particularly women.

ECONOMIC ACTIVITY OF WOMEN

What the Platform says,

Page 94, paragraph 151

Paragraph 156: …women contribute to development not only through remunerated work but also through a great deal of unremunerated work. On the one hand, women participate in the production of goods and services for the market and household consumption, in agriculture, food production or family enterprises. Though included in the United Nations System of National Accounts and therefore in international standards for labour statistics, this unremunerated work – particularly that related to agriculture – is often undervalued and under-recorded. On the other hand, women still also perform the great majority of unremunerated domestic work and community work such as caring for children and older persons, preparing food for the family, protecting the environment and providing voluntary assistance to vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals and groups. This work is often not measured in quantitative terms and is not valued in national accounts. Women’s contribution to development is seriously underestimated and thus its social recognition is limited. The full visibility of the type, extent and distribution of this unremunerated work will also contribute to a better sharing of responsibilities.

What the data reveal

The column on women as percentage of adult labour force shows that for most countries, women are well represented in the formal labour force where they represent between 30% and 50% of the workforce. Similarly, the share of earned income in the formal sector varies between 19% (for Algeria) and 42% (for Malawi). But unfortunately, data in this column are only available for less than half of the countries.

Availability of data for these other countries would make it easier to appreciate the full situation on the continent.

As regards women and economic power, the data reveal that women are present in the labour force but at the lower echelons. The column on Female Administrators and Managers shows that in about one third of the countries, female representation stands at below 10%. Eight countries have between 11% and 20% while 6 countries only have above 20%. Lesotho is second highest with 33% while Botswana stands highest with 36%. There is need for strategies to enable women to rise on the economic decision making echelons just as in political decision making.

However, what the data do not say: the data on the Economic Activity of Women reveal the gap in availability of data between the formal and informal sectors. For both women and men, the formal sector represents only a fraction of the economic activity taking place within the country and therefore to consider only data recorded from the formal sector would mean missing a great deal of the economic activities of the African mainly poor women and men. The market women of West African countries do not appear in these tables, nor do the activities of the vibrant informal sector in the rest of Africa. Similarly, the reproductive work of women is neither recognized nor recorded against men’s which is for the most part in the productive sector and is somehow accounted for.

In spite of this work, the Platform states that women constitute 70% of the world’s poor (page 22

The UNDP Human Development Report for 1996 says that much work in society goes unrecognized and unvalued – and most of it is done by women. In industrial countries, roughly two thirds of women’s total work time – but only a third of men’s – is unrecorded. In developing countries, the proportion is similar for women, but for men it declines to less than a quarter. In most countries, women do more work than men. Women in developing countries tend to carry an even larger share of the workload than those in the industrial countries – in average about 13% higher than men’s share, and in rural areas, 20% higher than men’s.

The collection, analysis, dissemination and utilization of comprehensive, accurate, timely and gender disaggregated data cannot be overemphasized. It is such data that policy decision -makers, programmers and project managers require to effectively recognize, value and reward women's contribution to economic growth and development.

• Provide reliable data for all countries to make it easier to appreciate the full situation on the continent.

• Countries need to urgently institute mechanisms for collecting, analyzing, disseminating and ensuring utilization of comprehensive, accurate, timely and reliable gender disaggregated data for policy decision-making, planning, programming and project design and implementation. Country must ensure that women's contribution in economic growth and development is not overlooked, unvalued, and unrecorded as though they were not central to all efforts exerted towards poverty reduction.

• Adjust related policies

• Promote appropriate technologies

• Allocate funds from national budgets and invest in women's economic activities

HUMAN RIGHTS OF WOMEN AND THE GIRL-CHILD

What the Platform says…

… Any harmful aspect of certain traditional, customary or modern practices that violates the rights of women should be prohibited and eliminated. Governments should take urgent action to combat and eliminate all forms of violence against women in private and public life, whether perpetrated or tolerated by the State or private persons. (paragraph 224)

What the data reveal

The issue of human rights of women is perhaps one of the more difficult ones to deal with because it is shrouded in deeply entrenched and rigid attitudes and practices that militate against positive change of legislation or practice in favour of women. They are experienced as emotive issues that could easily destroy the whole social fabric. Often the bottom line is power and having to share it with women or to even recognize them as having equal rights to resources or to a different perspective of life.

Human rights of women and the girl-child are a burning issue in the face of the many abuses women go through in Africa, such as wife inheritance, battery and female genital mutilation which is widely practised in some parts of Africa. Similarly, ratification of international instruments by governments is a pre-requisite to the recognition of those rights by the country and their enjoyment by the women. The data give the status of each country with regard to the signature, accession or ratification of the instruments most relevant to women according to the UN Commission of Human Rights. It is important that governments ratify these instruments and remove reservations and that the civil society pressures for their recognition and application in their respective countries.

In spite of most countries having signed and ratified CEDAW, there still exist contradictory laws or absence of laws in various countries that make mockery of the implementation of the Convention. To cite but a few examples, the Convention on the Nationality of Married Women and the Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriage have been signed/ratified by 13 and 7 countries respectively. This lack of legal backing complicates efforts to enforce the law in favour of women and girls.

The other burning issue is that of female genital mutilation which is practised in a good number of countries (except North Africa excluding Egypt, southern Africa, Mauritius, Madagascar, Seychelles) . Two million girls undergo the practice every year in different parts of the world. Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia and the Sudan account for 75% of all cases. In Djibouti and Somalia, 98% of all girls are mutilated. While a number of countries have published policy opposing FGM, only Ghana has passed a specific FGM law while Egypt has prohibited the practice through the Medical Code of Practice.

Other forms of abuses of human rights of women go unrecorded, e.g. domestic violence, rape and wife inheritance, which is now causing much concern because of the risk of HIV transmission and spread.

There is need for urgent action but also for statistical data in these other areas in order to enable governments and the society at large to devise strategies to combat these ills.

Action needed:

There is need for urgent action. It is important that governments ratify all the relevant international instruments removing declarations and reservations that allow any level of abuse of human rights and impede gender equality. The civil society also needs to exert pressure for the recognition and application of these instruments in their respective countries. Member States should fill gaps in appropriate statistical data in all areas in order to enable governments and the society at large to devise strategies to combat the above ills.

WOMEN IN POWER AND DECISION-MAKING

What the Platform says, page 109, paragraph 181

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to take part in the Government of his/her country. The empowerment and autonomy of women and the improvement of women’s social, economic and political status is essential for the achievement of both transparent and accountable government and administration and sustainable development in all areas of life … Achieving the goal of equal participation of women and men in decision-making will provide a balance that more accurately reflects the composition of society and is needed in order to strengthen democracy and promote its proper functioning. Equality in political decision-making performs a leverage function without which it is highly unlikely that a real integration of the equality dimension in government policy-making is feasible. In this respect, women’s equal participation in political life plays a pivotal role in the general process of the advancement of women.

What the data show:

What the data show: in Women in Decision making, the data show gender discrepancies in access to resources of education and power sharing:

• 0 – 0.9% in 32 countries

• 10 – 20% in 10 countries

• 20 – 30% in 4 countries:

• Seychelles 27%

• South Africa 25%

• Mozambique 25%

• Eritrea 21%

The same scenario is repeated with representation of women in government whereby 36 countries have less than 10% women.

In 11 countries there are between 10 and 20% women:

• Mali 10

• Namibia 10

• Niger 10

• Ghana 11

• Burkina Faso 11

• Ghana 11

• Cape Verde 13

• Uganda 13

• Benin 15

• Guinea 15

• Tanzania 16%

and only 2 countries have over 20% : Gambia with 22% and Seychelles with 31%.

What is striking is that both in the case of women’s representation in parliament and government, the countries that have facilitated women’s access to decision-making are not necessarily the giants in terms of GDP, GNP, in terms of performance in education, economic activity or in access to basic health services. Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger, Ethiopia, Angola and Chad have made a very commendable effort in enabling women’s access to power sharing. Similarly, in countries emerging from conflict, e.g. Eritrea, South Africa, Uganda and Rwanda, it seems to have been easier for women to make their way into decision-making structures, thanks to the absence of the rigidity of structures, thanks to the absence of the rigidity of structures.

 Action needed:

Countries need to urgently implement gender sensitization and mainstreaming programmes to facilitate policy adjustments. They need to facilitate education programmes, both formal and informal, that will hasten sensitization at all levels. Some must consider positive discrimination and the use of quotas in elections and appointments to place women in decision-making positions.