Empowerment and Gender Equality in Developing Countries
EMMANUEL ALOIS TURUKA
WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY
Main Argument
Empowerment
and Gender Equality has helped women in developing countries (Sub-Saharan) Africa,
in gaining access to participate decision making bodies in the local government.
Progress in promoting gender equality and empowerment of women in local government
has been hampered by different problems. Therefore The success of all these
efforts will typically, depend more on the willingness of government on
formulating policies which would eradicate the discrimination practices between
men and women which still taking place in the society.
Introduction.
In most
literatures it is clearly explained that Inequality between men and women arising
from the unequal division of power in the society. As the World Bank 2001
report pointed out that,” In almost all developing countries women do not
possess the same legal, social and economic opportunities, in power and
political voices”. According to this report empowerment and gender inequality if
well utilized are regarded as an important vehicle for increasing women's
representation and advancing women’s rights.
It
should be born in our mind that Women play a significant role in the
development of Africa economies which is the foundation of politics and
decision making. Despite all the effort they do still they lack an opportunity
to be in decision making bodies because of traditional customs and modern
segregation that women are inferior and they need to stay home. This situation
tells that empowerment of women has not been fully integrated into policy formulation
and project design. More efforts like capacity building and other measure needs
to implement in eradicating the gaps between men and women in, economic, social
and political life so that they can enjoy all opportunities like me.
Definitions
of important terms;
The term
empowerment has different meanings depending on the socioeconomic, political
and cultural context in which it is presented. World Bank defines empowerment
as the expansion of freedom of choices and actions and increasing one’s authority
and control over the resources and decision that affects one life. (World Bank
2001). The core of the meaning of women’s
empowerment lies in the ability of a woman to control her own destiny.
Kabeer (2001), whose definition is the most widely accepted, defines
empowerment as “the expansion of people’s ability to make strategic life
choices in a context where this ability was previously denied to them” (Kabeer,
2001: 86). In other words Empowerment - is about people -both women and men-
taking control over their lives: setting their own agendas, gaining skills,
building self-confidence, solving problems and developing self-reliance, and
expressing their voice. It is both a process and an outcome. No one can empower
another: only the individual can empower herself or himself to make choices or
to speak out. However, some institutions can support processes that can nurture
self-empowerment of relegated individuals or groups.
On the
other hand gender equality is
defined as equal empowerment and participation for both men and women in all
spheres of public and private life. This does not imply that both sexes are the
same but rather that they are equal in rights and dignity. The emphasis here is that gender
equality must be constantly fought for, protected and encouraged in order eliminating
the pervasive discrimination experienced by most women and attaining more equal
participation of men and women in the life of the community
Literature
Review
According
to reports on the Political Empowerment of Women (1999), it was cleanly explained in 1995 only
10% of the members of legislative bodies
were women and in 1999 there was an increase 0f 1% (11%) of women in decision
making. In trying to solve the problem women activists came up with Beijing
Conference which had two goals; first “take measures to ensure women’s access
to and full participation in power structures and decision making” and second,
increase women’s capacity to participate in decision-making and leadership and
women should hold 50% of managerial and decision making posts by 2000. In
accomplishing this mission decentralization was used as one of major platform
of involving women at grassroots level to enter into decision-making.
Before
the Beijing Conference, it was evident that women played only a small role a
small role in the power and decision making structures in their countries. The
goal of the Beijing platform was to reverse the situation of women by creating
strategies to ensure equal representation of women at all levels.
According
to Heise and Ellsberg (1999) around the world at least one woman in every three
has been beaten coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime. The core
of the concept of empowerment lies in the ability of the women to control her
own destiny. UNECA, 2004a; UNECA forthcoming, Longwe, 2000, World Bank, 2001,
Sen, 1993 pointed out that, It is important to assess achievement in gender
equality and empowerment within the framework of four broad interrelated areas:
economic, social, political participation and women’s human rights (as shown in
the table below)
Table 1.
Overview
of the different dimensions of gender inequality
Dimension
of capability
|
Form
of gender inequality
|
Economic
participation
|
Gender
discrimination in access to and control over resources such as land,
property, agricultural inputs, extension services, employment, and a wide
range of livelihood opportunities. Women and girls are disadvantaged
|
Social
participation
|
Gender
discrimination in access to essential public services such as education,
health, water, energy and
social security and protection, community and family support.
|
Political
participation
|
Gender
discrimination in participating in decision-making processes, e.g. in
political institutions and policy-making organizations, consultation, and the
rights and responsibilities of citizenship. African women do not always
participate in public and private (in the home) decision-making spheres to
bring their priorities and needs into the agenda.
|
Women’s
human rights
|
Women’s
human rights are human rights violations that women face simply by virtue of
being a woman. Women suffer various human rights violations that men do not,
such as being deprived of schooling, forced marriage, and violence against
women.
|
According
to the ILO, 2008 Economic participation Employment report pointed out that the
difference between female and male employment-to-population ratios were 22.7
percentage points in 2007 as well as in 1997. Women continue to face
considerable barriers in African labor markets as a result of lack of
education, inadequate access to training, discrimination, and cultural
attitudes about their role in the workplace. The major challenges affecting the
achievement of gender parity in formal employment include the low educational
level of women and girls; lack of skills; labor laws that still disadvantage
women in most countries and the continuous heavy burdens of unpaid domestic
work, childbearing and childcare, which restrict the time and energy available
for income-earning activities.
Women in
Africa experience greater challenges in accessing decent jobs than men. Women’s
share of employment in the formal sector is still lower relative to men and
their pay is on average lower than men’s pay for the same work. But the
question still remains that there are still mixing outcomes to the evidence on
how women are affected by those decentralization policies, and the extent to
which they have been involved in shaping the implementation and results of
those policies which indicates that women still face significant challenges at
the local level. The evidence of this is the absence of a strong network
between women councilors and women’s organizations which continues to rob women
in local governments of a valuable source of support and encouragement.
Main
discussion;
Gender
disparities still persist in most of the developing countries as I have pointed
before, but For real development to be efficient and effective both women and
men should equally participate in the decisions processes that shape their
lives. As Rowlands 1995 argues that
Empowerment is not only about opening up access to decision making but also
include processes that lead people to perceive themselves as able entitled to
occupy that decision making space. In other words the gender gap in earnings
persists and women’s jobs tend to enjoy less social protection and employment
rights than do men’s jobs. The differences between females and males are
interpreted by society to create a set of social expectations that defines the
behavior that are appropriate for women and men and that determine women’s and
men’s differential access to rights
resources and power in society. The numbers of women in policy or decision
making institutions cannot be taken to be the sole indicator of empowerment of
women. The impact of women’s empowerment cannot be measured by the closing of
gaps in parliament but by the amount of power and influence they wield towards
changing the conditions of women in the country especially in rural areas. Our
main discussion so far is how much progress has been made in removing these
obstacles?
Empowerment
and gender inequality if well utilized can benefit women by creating greater
opportunities for women to express their views and exert influences in decision
making at the local level. It will also fuel women’s empowerment and Promote
gender equity; consider enhancing mechanism of participation and partnership
should increase the effectiveness through the mechanism of full participation
make sure that policy formulation resources management and service provision
monitoring evaluation and feedback. The partnership between women, men and government must be based on
mutual trust and understanding of the various actors, acknowledges that each
has both strengths and weaknesses. Each actor must enable the other actors in
their legitimate roles and hold them accountable if they step outside their
legitimate mandates. Gender inequalities exist because of discrimination in the
family and societal institutions and cultural and religious norms that perpetuate
stereotypes, practices and beliefs that are detrimental to women. Khan (2003)
points out increases popular participation in decision-making because it brings
government closer to people, making it more accessible and knowledgeable about
local conditions and more responsive to people’s demands. Central governments,
located far away and preoccupied mostly with national and regional issues, fall
short of adequately and efficiently providing services essentially local in
nature.
Successful
case of democratic decentralization and empowerment case in Africa: Rwanda
Over the
last decades gender issue and women’s empowerment have received a remarkable attention
on global. Good news about some African countries (Rwanda, Mozambique, South
Africa. Burundi, Tanzania Uganda etc.) have attained 30% and above according to
Beijing goal about women's representation of women in national parliaments such
shown in the table below,
Rwanda is one
of successful case with the highest women representation, as the President Paul
Kagame during the official opening of a gender –training workshop for
Parliamentarians in 1999 said that. “It
is imperative to our lawmakers, policymakers and implementers to have an
objective and correct analysis of the gender question in order to design
appropriate correctional policies and programs. The question of gender equality
in our society needs a clear and critical evaluation in order to come up with
concrete strategies to map the future development in which men and women are
true partners and beneficiaries. My understanding of gender is that it is an
issue of good governance, good economic management and respect of human rights” Peace Uwineza and Elizabeth Pearson 2009
Table 8. Female representation in parliament
Country
|
%
Women
|
Quota
|
Rwanda
|
48.8
|
30%
Reserved Seats - indirectly related Voluntary party quotas
|
Mozambique
|
34.8
|
Voluntary
party quotas
|
South
Africa
|
32.8
|
Voluntary
party quotas
|
Burundi
|
30.5
|
Legislated
quota for 30% women candidates on party
|
Tanzania
|
30,4
|
30%
reserved seats
|
Uganda
|
29.8
|
|
Namibia
|
26.9
|
|
Female
representation in parliament Source: UNECA 2008c
In
justifying women in Rwanda have representation in very serious positions; it is
worth noting that the President of the Supreme Court of Rwanda and the Minister
of Justice are both women, as is the Executive Secretary of the Gacaca courts.
Of the 12 judges on the Supreme Court, 5 are women giving a representation of
41.7%. Further, at the local administration level, under the decentralization
arrangement, women occupy 26% of the posts on the executive councils of each province. According to Peace Uwineza and Elizabeth Pearson 2009) they observe that
In 2003 Rwanda elected 48, 8% women to its lower house of parliament giving in
the world’s highest percentage of women in a national legislature. In 2008
again women earned 56 %of seats in the lower house
With all
the increase of women's representation do we have a quality of women in
decision making? Has women’s participation made a difference to decision
making? Although some of African countries have made some progress in women's representation
in parliament and ministries, it is important to note that this higher
representation of women has not yet systematically led to adequate budgets,
institutional frameworks and policies for implementing gender program for
gender equality (UNECA, 2007). The major challenges affecting effective
participation of the women include illiteracy and lack of confidence that make
the women unable to effectively articulate the issues and make contributions;
gender relations of power and party politics. T
What
should be done in making sure that empowerment and Gender Equity work for
women?
— Empowerment
and Gender Equality are a necessary condition for women's
development but, not sufficient;
— Most of
women lack of self-confidence and prevailing cultural and social attitudes
— Effective
advocacy and lobbying strategies are also needed to ensure that more women
attain top decision making positions as a natural result of their skills
capacity.
— The
partnership must be based on mutual trust and understanding of the various
actors,
The
above issues are very important for women's development. Empowerment is about
changing unequal institutional relationships to equity relationship. Social
Institutions which govern our democratic and economic development to all are
very important in helping women in reaching and enjoying equality. Such Institutions
are government policies, traditional norms and patterned behavior that
discriminate women. The institutions that affect women’s lives are formal and
informal. Formal institutions include the laws and rules embedded in state,
private sector and civil society organizations at the local, national and
global levels as well as international organizations.
Changing
unequal institutional relations depends more on the mutual relationship between
men and women in order to improve and change the laws, procedures, regulations,
values, and ethics and are not benefiting women. Promoting affirmative action
as an important strategy in bringing about transformation, and creating a
critical mass of women in decision-making positions.
We also
need a strong women's association to push and establish policies like things quotes
for women, in different decision making bodies which will help to bring more women
in political atmospheres and in economic development.
Together
as the nation we need to review and challenge electoral processes and
discriminatory practices against women. In addition, setting up a central fund
for women’s political activities would also encourage women to aspire for leadership
positions. For example, in Zambia, a campaign fund was set up to help women candidates. Ensuring that the legal
policy framework allows for a constitution that promotes equality between the
sexes as a base for all laws and regulations.
It is
crucial to undertake inclusive participatory approaches in policy development
that involve women as equal partners. In some countries laws that promote
gender equality are in place; however the lack of enforcement of such laws
leads to the perpetuation of gender inequalities and violence against women. In
some countries, laws are in place, but interpretation of these laws is lacking
and as such, they are not enforced.
Promoting gender equality requires a multi-sectoral approach with all the
sectors playing their role.
Conclusion
Empowerment and Gender Equality is a necessary
condition, not sufficient; but the success of Affirmative Action with respect
to gender balance can lead to positive changes with. It is
true that most of women lack of self-confidence and prevailing cultural and
social attitudes, problems that are often interlinked. A vice mayor for gender
in a district in Butare summarized the problem as follows: Women always
consider themselves inferior to men, and this came as a result of some cultural
beliefs that women were created to be wives and take care of children.
The
empowerment and autonomy of women and the improvement of their social, economic
and political status are essential factors in the achievement of both
transparent and accountable government and administration, as well as the
attainment of sustainable development. Achieving the goal of equal
participation of women and men in decision-making provides a balance which more
accurately reflects the composition of society and is needed in order to
strengthen democracy and promote its proper functioning. Women in politics and
decision-making positions contribute to redefining political priorities,
placing new items on the political agenda which reflect and address women’s gender-specific
concerns, values and experiences, and provide new perspectives on mainstream
political issues. Without the active participation of women and the
incorporation of their perspectives at all levels of decision-making, the goals
of equality, development and peace cannot be achieved.
From the
discussion it is cleanly that form Africa countries show that some progress has
been made in the area of women’s political empowerment particular in terms of
increased awareness and sensitivity to women’s to women’s issues. A lot still
needs to be done to increase women’s representation in policy and decision
making to increase the knowledge skills and dexterity of women power policy and
decision making. Effective advocacy and lobbying strategies are also needed to
ensure that more women attain top decision making positions as a natural result of their
skills capacity.
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