By Rumbidzai M. Masango

The current development status in Southern Africa is very dismal, especially when one uses the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as the yardstick of progress made since 2000. The MDGs are eight time-bound development goals that seek to eradicate poverty in its many dimensions. The goals were adopted by world leaders in 2000 and provide a framework for the international community to work together towards a common end – making sure that human development reaches everyone, everywhere. Ten years on and with five years to go until the 2015 deadline, one wonders whether all Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries have fully committed themselves to implementing these goals.

Goal 3, seeks to promote gender equality and promote the empowerment of women. This is important as women play a significant role in the development process. Globalization has increased the informalisation of the economy and this has added to the difficulties especially against the background of cuts in public health and decreasing social protection. The challenge for progressive policy options and approaches to responding to broad demands including gender inequality lies in addressing exclusion and empowering citizens to participate in all spheres of life. It is therefore important to ensure women and men have equal access to resources, opportunities, capabilities and are empowered through skills development.

It is clear that high levels of poverty and the HIV/AIDS pandemic are major challenges to development. Two thirds of people with HIV-AIDS live in Africa (over 60% of these are women). Most of these women also bear the burden of not only looking after themselves but after other sick family members as well as do domestic chores and what is more, they face nutritional challenges. This is exacerbated by the deterioration in the state of health and infrastructure and facilities. While poverty levels differ from country to country, the problem is still the same. For instance, 43.4% of people in Lesotho live on less than US$1.25 a day, while the situation is more severe in Malawi with 73.9%. There are chronic food shortages in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique and the global financial crisis has further crippled economies that were either already experiencing slow or declining economic growth.

A number of countries (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, just to name a few) are signatories to several regional and international instruments on Gender and Human Rights. These include; the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR), the SADC Declaration on Gender and the African Union (AU) Protocol on Women. However, not all instruments that have been signed have been ratified and as such they are not part of domestic law. These instruments are important because they provide an empowerment framework which requires that women should be able to access not just what they need to meet their welfare needs, but also the ability to choose and control their lives in a system that recognizes their autonomy and their rights as citizens.

The continuation of gender bias impacts negatively on women daily. One area where this is evident is that of Informal Cross Border Trade (ICBT). ICBT entails the movement of people across borders to buy goods for re-sale. This is not registered formally and about 70% of these traders are women.

These women face many challenges and obstacles in this trading sector. The first is the lack of access to resources such as; capital, bank loans, efficient and safe transport as well as supply and demand information. Generally, traders are often clueless about where to get capital from formal institutions or the procedures necessary to get capital. About 60% of informal traders require start up capital and over time they have resorted to their friendship and kinship networks for financial assistance. Women often complain of the high interest rates they are charged or about the difficulty in saving the borrowed money that trickles in. It is therefore important to ensure there is adequate provision of accurate information to decrease costs associated with the lack of adequate knowledge.

Women and girls a like in Southern Africa continue to struggle to advance in their endeavours due to minimal opportunities for them. In informal trade about 23% of traders are under the age of 18 years of age. Children have been seen buying and selling, declaring goods to customs officials and taking part in illegal trade/prostitution. The trading environment leaves young girls vulnerable to physical and emotional abuse, sexual harassment, rape, trafficking and pre-mature school drop outs. Informal traders have strongly voiced that governments need to enforce children’s rights more sternly so that they (the children) are respected. A better recommendation is to provide a safety net for underprivileged children, that at least allows them free education and basic food staffs for survival, so as to deter them from informal trade altogether.

Most female informal traders joined the informal sector due to circumstance and not choice. There is therefore a strong sentiment amongst traders in the SADC region that governments need to stimulate employment creation and also provide formal skills to help citizens better themselves and assist in contributing positively to society. It is clear that the current environment in the ICBT sector is not empowering women, instead the system makes them feel like perpetrators of crime due to the lack of respect which they receive. There is therefore an urgent need to create an environment that allows the regional and international declarations that were signed to be realised and felt on the ground.

1985 saw the signing of the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies Plan for Africa. This plan called on governments to promote women into leadership and decision making positions, by putting appropriate legislative measures in place. This is important because power-sharing and decision making in the political sphere are highly uneven and matters of governance are generally seen as the prerogative of men. Gender principles that focus on relations between societal groups and challenge the under-pinning principles of sub-ordination, like patriaand class carry greater potential for positive transformation.

Gender equality at a national and influential level has positive implications for voiceless women who are discriminated against at the grassroots level. Not only does it fulfil the main principle of ‘democracy’ – equal rights for all, but it also provides a platform for opinions and perspectives of men and women to be taken into account. This results in a balanced process when formulating any decision, strategy or policy.

Furthermore, governing institutions must be reformed to ensure that there are opportunities for women to represent and be represented. After all, women’s political rights are an integral and inseparable part of their human rights. Therefore, it is through engendered governance that one can ensure healthy participation of women and men in the SADC region.

It is only then that we can see Goal 3 taking shape in the government institutions and filtering through society and eventually to the grassroots and empowering women. Empowerment can take many forms including; equal access to loans, land rights, education and strict laws that allow free movement without sexual harassment.

To conclude, in the struggle and fight for economic justice, we call for SADC States to take gender balance seriously not only by merely meeting required gender quotas in government and parliament, but there needs to be an active movement, through policies, to acknowledge the women on the ground, who find themselves frustrated by trying to provide their children with decent lives and live in dignity. It may be helpful to also begin looking into social protection programmes that assist the poor in their time of need. Thus providing a safety net, to ensure that no one has to suffer or die due to generational or economic circumstances.  It is time to begin to incorporate the regional and international declarations into domestic law and provide more balanced and inclusive policies and laws that empower all citizens of society.