Africa: Gender and NEPAD, 1
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+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++

Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +gender/women+ +political/rights+
+economy/development+

SUMMARY CONTENTS:

"NEPAD is better understood as being in the category of empty
lip-service to principles of gender equality. In principle NEPAD is
much in favour of equal rights for women, but in practice it
proposes almost nothing in the form of action to realise these
principles."

This is the bottom-line conclusion from this paper by Sara
Hlupekile Longwe ([email protected]) on how women's gender issues
(i.e. women's human rights) have been ignored in the framework for
African development adopted by African countries under the acronym
NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Development). The author is a
feminist consultant and chairperson of the African Women's
Development and Communications Network (FEMNET)
(http://www.africaonline.co.ke/femnet).

The paper was presented at an NGO-Forum, 14-16 October 2002,
organised by the African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights
Studies (ACDHRS), Banjul, The Gambia, in preparation for the 32nd
Session of the African Commission on African Human and Peoples'
Rights (ACAHPR), Banjul, 17-23 October 2002. The text was
distributed by the author on the NEPAD-Forum discussion organized
by FEMNET ( http://lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/nepad-forum ).

Because of the importance of this document, and the strong and
clear critique it presents, we are reposting the full text, in two
postings. The full text as a Word attachment is also available in
the archive of the nepad-forum mailing list at the web address
above.

+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

NEPAD Reluctance to Address Gender Issues

Sara Hlupekile Longwe Feminist Consultant

11 October 2002

Introduction

This paper assesses whether NEPAD (The New Partnership for African
Development) can provide the basis for action on issues of gender
inequality, and therefore whether the newly formed African Union
provides a new opportunity and mechanism for progress towards equal
rights for women in Africa.

The assessment of NEPAD's intention to address gender issues is
analysed by looking at NEPAD as a planning sequence, from
expression of principles and goals, through to the identification
of the specific actions proposed to achieve these goals. The
interest is to examine the attention to gender through the sequence
of planning steps, looking specifically at the consistency of the
logic in the treatment of gender issues as the planning sequence
unfolds.

From this analysis it is found that NEPAD begins with some fairly
strong statements of principle on the need for gender equality. But
this initial commitment fades away as the planning sequence
proceeds, leading to no adequate identification of specific gender
issues to be addressed, and no strategies and or proposed actions
to address gender issues. This is despite the many very serious
gender issues that are generally known to be important in the NEPAD
priority areas of democracy, good governance and human rights.

This lack of intention to act on women's rights is seen in the
context of the African Union, which is seen as a collection of
patriarchal states with a record in this area of high level
commitments and low level action. For action on gender issues, the
NEPAD document is not seen as a new turning point, but rather as a
continuation of the previous miserable record.

Given this evidence of lack of political will within the African
Union for action on women's rights, the paper concludes with some
strategic considerations on how feminists and other human rights
activists can better push the African Union in the direction of
their own formally declared principles and commitments, or
otherwise embark on their own independent strategies.

2 Gender Issues Which NEPAD Needs to Address

Before we begin our analysis of how NEPAD treats gender issues, we
should first consider the necessary importance of these issues to
the overall programme. This importance arises first and foremost in
NEPAD's own declared central interest in issues of good governance,
democracy and human rights, which are seen as the preconditions for
development. Gender issues are also important, although perhaps
secondarily, in the area of economic development. For the sake of
brevity, we shall here confine ourselves mainly to the first area,
of gender issues in democracy, good governance and human rights.

For good governance, it is axiomatic that all citizens should have
equal rights in law and before the law. All publicly available
opportunities and resources must be equally available to all,
without discrimination. As far as women's rights are concerned,
this means that there must be no discrimination against women.
Specifically, this means women should not be subjected to different
treatment on the basis of sex. And yet, contrary to such principles
of democracy and good governance, women throughout the continent of
Africa live in extremely patriarchal societies, where men control
the decision making process in the government and in the home. Male
domination of the decision making process serves to ensure that
women get most of the work, and men collect most of the rewards
arising from this work.

The huge gender gaps in literacy, education, wealth and access to
power are the result of discriminatory practices. These practices
do not exist only at the social and traditional level. To different
degrees, in all African countries, these discriminatory practices
are entrenched in law, in the administration of the law, and in the
general regulations governing government and corporate bureaucratic
practice. It is governments who are the principle perpetrators of
discrimination against women, and the enforcers of their continued
oppression.

In my own country of Zambia, an article in the Constitution
purports to protect women from discrimination in any law or public
provision, and yet one of the qualifying clauses in this same
article exludes women from this protection in the areas of personal
law, marriage law and customary law. These, of course, are
precisely the areas of law where women are most discriminated
against, and the areas which, by extension, legitimise
discrimination in other areas. In other words the article which
purports to protect women from discrimination in effect does the
opposite, and legalises it.

This example illustrates a pattern which is common all over Africa,
where statutory law apparently gives equality of status, but where
customary law (or the local version of Sharia law) maintains and
enforces women's subordination.Typically the overall pattern is
that women are treated as legal minors, cannot inherit property,
and cannot own land. Rather than own property, they are part of the
property which is owned by men, often in polygamous marriage. Under
some interpretations of Sharia law, as with the recent sentencing
to death of a woman in Northern Nigeria, the legal system may
enforce ownership and control by a dead husband.

This brief overview of the situation of women's oppression in
Africa is presented here to remind the reader of the enormous
gender issues which the African Union has to face up to if it is to
claim any serious interest in democracy and human rights. Since the
African Union's activities will be mostly concerned with the
co-ordination and harmonisation of national policies, it is the
developmental programme of the Union NEPAD which provides the
vehicle for political and socio-economic development, and therefore
for action on women's rights.

3 A Framework for Analysing Internal Planning Coherence

Although NEPAD describes itself as a 'programme', it is better
understood as a large scale regional strategic development plan. In
this section we identify the essential elements of a development
strategy, so that in the next section we can use these elements to
assess the internal coherence of NEPAD in its treatment of the
gender element within the plan.

Of course it is often the case that development plans do not
measure up very well to the sequence of planning logic which is
suggested below. If so, this is because the planning was not
adequate. To the extent that a plan reveals internal contradictions
or lack of logical connections, the justification for the
development interventions are suspect.

A strategic development plan should typically present itself as a
rational argument, pursued by logical connections along the
following sequence:

Elements of a Strategic Development Plan

1. Situation Analysis
2. Policy Imperatives
3. Problem Identification
4. Formulation of Goals
5. Identification of Appropriate Intervention Strategies
6. Implementation Strategies and
7. Objectives Management System

Situation Analysis refers to the initial review of the situation in
the area that is of interest to the plan, particularly to mention
the various problem situations which might need to be addressed by
the plan. Here, with NEPAD, we find mention of quite different
types of problems: firstly to do with globalisation, and Africa's
need to get a fair share of the benefits from the process; secondly
partnership with the West, and the need to escape from the
prevailing pattern of Western domination of a 'rider and horse'
type of partnership; thirdly, the catalogue of developmental
problems of African poverty and underdevelopment.

Policy Imperatives refer to those aspects of the policy environment
which are relevant when deciding what to do about the given
Situation. In terms of formal planning logic, no Situation can be
said to present a Problem unless there are Policy Principles that
dictate that aspects of the situation are unacceptable, and
therefore present a Problem on which action must be taken to
eliminate or alleviate the Problem. However, the relevant policy
environment is commonly omitted from plans, presumably on the
assumption that everybody knows what the policy principles are, or
otherwise because some aspects or the situation are 'obviously'
unacceptable, and are 'obviously' adopted as a problem. In the case
of gender, the reader would like to know what principles of gender
equality guide NEPAD.

Problem Identification. As already mentioned, in planning logic a
problem only formally comes to light when Policy Principles are set
against the Situation Analysis. Despite this formal logic, many
problems are identified as 'obvious', and may indeed be so. But the
'obvious' aspects of problem identification tend to be notably
missing in the area of gender. Whereas many ordinary problems are
'obvious' without recourse to looking at the policy, gender issues
tend to get overlooked, along with the gender policy itself. Gender
issues may be overlooked as being 'political' in plans that take a
technical or purely economic perspective. They may be overlooked
where the vocabulary is gender neutral, in terms of 'people',
'farmers', 'target group', 'beneficiaries', and so on, which
provide an easy formula for gender blind treatment of development
issues. Most of all, gender issues are likely to be overlooked by
male planners who are definitely not interested in recognizing or
addressing issues of gender inequality. With gender issues, it may
be necessary to wave the gender policy in planners' faces before
the existence of gender issues can be admitted. Despite the common
lack of identification of gender issues, it is usually very easy to
give gender issues a specific and precise identification in terms
of the size of gender gaps, and the existence of discriminatory
practices. In the case of NEPAD, the reader would like to know
which gender issues, such as identified gender gaps or forms of
gender discrimination, are of particular interest to NEPAD.

Formulation of Goals should follow naturally from problem
identification, where a goal may be summarized as an expressed
intention to address a problem, perhaps with a statement of
intended quantified outcomes, to be achieved in a specified time.
However, it is not uncommon for the transition from Problem to Goal
to show a complete disappearance of a gender issue. Or it may be
that a broad principle to address gender issues does not lead into
any goal to actually address a gender issue. For example, since
NEPAD claims to be interested in both democracy and gender
inequality, the reader might expect of find a definite goal to
close (the presently huge) gender gaps in parliamentary membership,
and a statement of the time period for this target to be achieved.

Identification of Appropriate Intervention Strategies. The logic in
moving from Goal to Intervention Strategy is that the chosen
intervention, in order to be effective, must tackle one or more of
the underlying causes of the given problem. But with poor planning,
the intervention is merely considered to be a 'good thing to do',
without any established causal connection with the original
problem. Very often intervention strategies are not made clear or
explicit within a strategic plan, but remain implicit within the
statement of goals. Where a plan's gender orientation proceeds as
far as gender oriented strategies, it is often found that there is
no clear logical, experiential or empirical connection between the
gender issues and the proposed intervention to address it. Very
often the systemic or structural aspects of gender discrimination
are forgotten, and interventions are aimed at increasing women's
confidence, skills, literacy, and so on, i.e. limited to increasing
women's access to resources.

Implementation Strategies are the methods that are chosen to
actually implement the intervention strategy. They are therefore
the lower level strategies. For example, the goal of increasing
women's representation in parliament may be achieved by the broad
intervention strategy of affirmative action. This may be achieved
by various implementation strategies, such as reserved seats for
women, or mandatory rules for political parties on proportion of
females amongst candidates, or providing special material support
for female candidates. A Strategic Plan should normally end, at
least in its substantive content, at the level of Implementation
Strategies. The remainder of planning, from Implementation
Strategies onwards, is concerned with the lower levels of action
planning, programme and project planning.

Objectives are the expression of the more specific and more
detailed intention of implementation purpose, especially in terms
of activities and intended outcomes. Very often an implementation
strategy is not properly identified or even justified, but may be
deduced by its being implicit within a list of objectives.

The Management System sets out the system of organization and
management for implementation and supervision. From a gender
perspective, it is particularly important that there is a
management system capable of understanding and implementing gender
oriented objectives, and for monitoring progress on gender
objectives. It is also important that women are represented in
management, and that women amongst the target group, beneficiaries
and affected community are involved in the planning and management
of implementation projects. However, there is often a mistaken
belief that representation of women in management can substitute
for the gender objectives which are missing from a development
plan. A programme manager may claim that, although there may be no
gender objectives, the programme will nonetheless be implemented in
a gender sensitive way. Such an argument, in terms of the above
analytical framework, is self-evident nonsense. A management team
can only enter the difficult project of addressing gender issues if
there is a clear mandate in the programme plan to address
particular gender issues, by means of specified intervention
strategies. In the case of NEPAD, we should expect that the plan
should not only state clear goals and objectives to address
specific gender issues, but also that the NEPAD management system
is gender balanced, and includes people who are trained in gender
planning and implementation, and experienced in recognising the
obstacles and difficulties arising from patriarchal opposition to
policies of gender equality.

4 Analysing NEPAD: Gender Fade Away

Having now set out the desirable planning logic which NEPAD ought
to follow, how well does NEPAD follow this logic in the area of
gender issues? Let us look at the above seven headings again, now
to look at main aspects of the adequacy of the treatment of gender
issues within NEPAD. This present section will look at the first
six headings (i.e. from Situation Analysis through to Objectives),
and the following Section 5 will look at the adequacy of the
proposed NEPAD Management System.

Situation Analysis.

(This is to be found in the NEPAD sections on Africa in Today's
World, The Historical Impoverishment of a Continent, and Africa and
the Global Revolution.) Here there is no mention of a single gender
issue. In terms of logical coherence, how can NEPAD be proposing to
address gender issues when none were even mentioned in the
situation analysis set out in the introductory sections?

Policy Imperatives.

The main NEPAD document has a very weak and unsatisfactory policy
statement concerned with 'promoting the role of women in
development', but this has now been bolstered with the
supplementary NEPAD Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic
and Corporate Governance. This is more in line with the similar
text of the Constitutive Act of the African Union. This Declaration
includes the principle that it is a binding obligation to ensure
that women have every opportunity to contribute in terms of full
equality to political and socio-economic development in all our
countries. (Article 11).

This same Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and
Corporate Governance also reaffirms (at Articles 3 and 4) its
allegiance to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women, the Beijing Declaration, and the OAU
African Charter on Human and People's Rights. This latter document
includes the following principles:

Every individual shall be entitled of the rights and freedoms
recognised and guaranteed in the present Charter without
distinction on any kind such as sex (Article 2)

Every individual shall be equal before the law. Every individual
shall be entitled to equal protection of the law. (Article 3)

The state shall ensure the elimination of every discrimination
against women and ensure the protection of the rights of the women
and the child as stipulated in international declarations and
conventions. (Article 18.3)

Problem Identification.

Given the very serious situation of women's oppression and
marginalisation summarised in Section 2 of this paper, then clearly
the above principles should have comprehensive and serious
implication for the recognition of priority gender issues which
ought to be a primary focus for NEPAD action. Given NEPAD's own
declared interest in good governance, democracy and human rights,
one might be entitled to expect a priority interest in identifying
and removing instances of legalised discrimination in law (both
statutory and customary). However, NEPAD does not identify any
specific gender issues that need to be addressed.After the
Situation Analysis, which does not mention gender issues,
NEPAD moves straight from Policy Principles to Goals. There is no
identification of the focus of problems to be addressed, except
insofar as these are implicit within the Situation Analysis or the
Goals.

[continued in part 2]

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[continued from part 1]

Goals (under the NEPAD heading of Sustainable Development in the
21st Century).

Despite the fine expression of gender principles, NEPAD's
expression of gender goals is very vague and lacking. There is an
overall 'long term objective' to 'promote the role of women
in all activities' , which is vague to the point of
meaninglessness. There is a 'goal' to 'make progress towards gender
equality and empowering women by eliminating gender disparities in
the enrolment in primary and secondary education by 2005'.

This latter goal of 'gender equality and empowering women' is not
merely a goal, but also includes the intervention strategy of more
schooling for women. There is no explanation of how the
intervention relates to the goal, let alone the relevance of this
strategy in societies where women are up against barriers of
legalized discrimination.

From the earlier expression of fine principles, the goals have
faded away to almost nothing, with no observable logical
connection. Completely missing from the goals is any intention to
increase women's representation in parliament, government and top
decision making positions. This is despite clear commitments both
in the African Platform (para. 105f) and in the Beijing Platform
(para.182) which endorses the UN Economic and Social Council
guideline of 30% women in top decision making positions

Intervention Strategies (to be found in the NEPAD sections on
Conditions for Sustainable Development and Sectoral Priorities).

Here there is absolutely no gender element suggested in any of the
three 'initiatives' on Peace and Security, Democracy and Political
Governance or Economic and Corporate Governance. But since NEPAD
identified no gender issues or goals in these areas, perhaps it is
not surprising that NEPAD can now find no strategies since there
are no issues to address, and no goals to pursue!

Obviously the authors of NEPAD have not referred to the Beijing
Platform for Action, which at para 190 and 191 lists no less than
nineteen alternative strategies that can be used to increase the
proportion of women in decision making positions in politics and
economic governance. One of these suggested strategies asks
governments to 'Take positive action to build a critical mass of
women leaders, executives and managers in strategic decision making
positions.' Another strategy is concerned with 'Taking measures,
including in electoral systems, that encourage political parties
to integrate women in elective and non-elective positions in the
same proportion and at the same levels as men'.

The only NEPAD Goal which is gender oriented (para 68) provided an
intervention strategy for closing gender gaps in school enrolment.
But when we look under the Education strategies (para 120-125) we
find that this intervention strategy has gone missing there are
no objectives nor activities with which to implement the strategy.

Without going further with this analysis, it is clear that the
NEPAD interest in gender issues has now entirely evaporated. What
started out with fine statements of principles of gender equality
has now faded away to nothing.

NEPAD is better understood as being in the category of empty
lip-service to principles of gender equality. In principle NEPAD is
much in favour of equal rights for women, but in practice it
proposes almost nothing in the form of action to realise these
principles. Absolutely nothing is proposed in the areas of
democracy, good governance and human rights, which are not only
crucial for women's advancement, but which are supposed to be
NEPAD's priority area of interest! NEPAD's introductory statements
on gender equality therefore prove to be nothing more than window
dressing, lip service and hot air. They are not followed by any
identification of the gender issues in these areas, let alone the
formulation of goals and objectives to address gender issues in
these areas.

5 Male Dominated Management of NEPAD and the African Union

Since NEPAD is lacking in gender oriented objectives, there is
obviously very limited relevance in any discussion on whether the
management system has the necessary skills or organisation to
pursue gender oriented objectives (see also the discussion of
Management System in Section 4, above).

The discussion of gender oriented management would become relevant
only if NEPAD could be radically revised to include gender oriented
objectives related to the main goals focused on democracy and human
rights. In this case, appropriate gender oriented management would
become relevant.

Probably because NEPAD was formulated before the agreement on the
Constitutive Act of the African Union, NEPAD says nothing definite
about the management system for its implementation, and no
management system or institutional structure is proposed. It is
merely stated that 'the heads of state promoting NEPAD will advise
the AU on an appropriate mechanism for its implementation' (para.
198). In the meantime, there is to be a 'Heads of State
Implementation Committee' to identify strategic issues and review
progress (para. 200-201). Obviously this Implementation Committee,
of five heads of state, would be a formula for male domination of
management.

However, now that the African Union has been formed, we may presume
that NEPAD would be managed by some distribution of
responsibilities, as yet to be set out, within the organs of the
Union. Therefore we now look at the main organs of the Union, which
are as follows:

1 The Assembly, composed of Heads of States and Governments

2 The Executive Council, composed of Ministers of Foreign Affairs
or other ministers or officials designated by their governments

3 Seven Specialised Technical Committees, reporting to the
Executive Council, and composed of government ministers or senior
officials

4 The Pan-African Parliament, whose functions and membership are
as yet undetermined

5 The Commission, acting as the Secretariat of the Union

Obviously, by present definition of its membership, the Assembly,
Executive Council and Specialised Technical Committees, will all
will be extremely male dominated, reflecting the male domination of
the national institutions from which these organs draw their
membership.

Despite this structural male domination of the Union management,
there has been a strange claim that there was agreement on 50%
female participation at the AU Heads of State meeting in Durban in
July 2002. A newsletter of the Femmes Africa Solidarite claims
that: "It is thanks to the Senegalese delegation to the AU, headed
by President Abdulaye, that upon his intervention advocating for
the African Women, the President did not face any opposition from
his peers on the gender parity proposal recommending 50%
participation of women in all AU organs."

If this 'lack of opposition' is to be interpreted as consent (which
would seem to be a big IF), then perhaps the agreement was for
membership of the Commission and other purely adminstrative organs
whose functions are yet to be determined, and whose members are yet
to be appointed. If so, the usefulness of such gender parity in
membership faces two obstacles. Firstly, gender parity does not in
itself necessarily bring an understanding of feminist principles
and policies. Secondly, an administrative body by definition -
does not make policy, but merely implements policy determined at
the political level, which in this case seems well set to remain
patriarchal and male dominated for the foreseeable future.

The areas of policy for the Executive Council and its Technical
Committees are divided along purely along traditional sectoral
lines:

Rural economy and agriculture; Monetary and financial affairs;
Trade, customs and immigration; Industry, science, technology,
energy, natural resources and environment; Transport, communication
and tourism; Health, labour and social affairs; Education, culture
and human resources;

In other words, there is no designation for the policy area of
democracy, human rights and good governance, which is supposed to
be a main area of interest of NEPAD. By the same token there is no
place to put the management of implementation of policy on women's
rights.

As with NEPAD itself, the Constitutive Act of the Union shows
ambivalence and contradiction on the subject of gender equality.
Whereas one of its 'principles' (in Article 4) is 'the promotion of
gender equality', another principle is 'non-interference by any
member state in the internal affairs of another'. And for
patriarchal men, the question of 'how we treat our women' is
definitely an internal matter, even at the domestic level, never
mind the national level!

Given this principle of non-interference in internal affairs, it is
difficult to see how the representative of any one state could
bring up the question of discrimination against women in another
state, or indeed bring up any human rights issue obtaining in
another state. And perhaps we may presume that a state
representative is not likely to raise an issue of a transgression
against human rights in their own state!

Given the above considerations, we may conclude that if NEPAD were
to include objectives to address gender issues, then the African
Union would not be the right organisation to implement it. However,
since NEPAD does not include any significant gender oriented
objectives, and none in the area of democracy and human rights, it
would seem that both NEPAD and the African Union are well matched
patriarchal bedfellows.

6 Governmental Reluctance to Address Gender Issues

The pattern of gender fade-away exhibited by NEPAD is nothing new.
In fact it is very typical and representative of what may commonly
be found in development plans in Africa, of both governments and
development agencies. There is a pervasive problem that development
agencies and national governments exhibit a lack of political will
in addressing gender policies. Instead there tends to be much vague
lip-service, involving ill-defined phrases such as
'gender-sensitive' and 'gender-aware implementation' of development
programmes, when in practice these programmes neither identify nor
intend to address the important gender issues which affect all
women in Africa. Instead their programmes employ 'watering down'
strategies that serve to overlook, sideline or compartmentalize
gender policy imperatives.

Underlying this failure to properly implement gender policies is a
quiet but determined patriarchal opposition to policies of gender
equality that is pervasive within development agencies, and amongst
the government bureaucracies of 'developing' countries. Only when
we are able to recognize and analyse the obstructive strategies of
patriarchal opposition, shall we be able to devise the alternative
and counter strategie1s to deal with this sort of opposition.

7 The Patriarchal Paradigm

All of the countries of the African Union, to varying degrees, are
patriarchal societies, with male dominated governments that adhere
faithfully to patriarchal values of male supremacy.

Clearly the authors of NEPAD are severely gender blind. We may
explain this blindness as being of a particular and well defined
form, which we may term as paradigmic patriarchal blindness. It is
evident that the authors do not see, and do not want to see, any
form of gender discrimination. Their whole interpretation of gender
issues, such as it is, seems to have no societal or structural
dimension. They do not seem to live in the same world of legalized,
traditional and institutionalised gender discrimination that is
actually the world inhabited by women in Africa. In all of NEPAD's
preliminary description of the problem situations to be addressed
by NEPAD, there is no mention of any gender issue. Even where the
document presents a weakly gender oriented goal, we find that this
objective is directed at a problem which has not been previously
mentioned.

It is this patriarchal paradigm which can nicely explain the
absence of any mention of gender issues in the discussion of
democracy and human rights. Of course it could be that the authors
deliberately removed the connection between gender and democracy,
or deliberately avoided it. But more likely they simply could not
see the connection. The clue to this interpretation may be found in
the phrase 'promoting the role of women by reinforcing their
capacity ' (NEPAD para 49, emphasis added). The vocabulary is very
revealing of the mind set of the authors. 'Promoting the role of
women' is a well worn phrase which insultingly suggests that women
are not sufficiently 'playing their part' in the development
process! Women need to be 'integrated in development'!

More revealing, however, is the phrase 'reinforcing their
capacity'. Here is the main clue to the patriarchal paradigmic
mind-set. Women's lesser role and subordinate position arise from
their lesser capacity! Therefore they need more education and
training! It is no accident that the only significant gender
oriented objective in all of NEPAD is concerned with gender
equality in access to schooling. Not a word about the unequal
gender division of labour, or that women are already doing most of
the developmental work, or that women come up against barriers of
gender discrimination which give the lion's share of the rewards to
men, and the lion's share of unpaid work to women! How is more
schooling going to alter that? Where schools teach female
submission, it will make things worse!

NEPAD is a statement written by male heads of governments who are,
in varying degrees, staunchly patriarchal. In their home countries
these governments tend to represent male interests, and defend the
patriarchal status quo. Should we then be surprised if NEPAD has
little recognition of gender issues, and even smaller intention to
address them? More important, what are the strategies if indeed
they can be found - by which these representatives of patriarchy
may be persuaded to adopt feminist policies?

This present assessment serves to draw attention to the large gap
between the situation of institutionalised gender injustice in
Africa, and governments' intention to do anything much about it.
This lack of intention stands in stark contradiction to their own
declared interest in democracy and human rights.

8 Conclusion: Towards Strategies of Action

The commitment to 'ensure the elimination of every discrimination
against women' (African Charter, Article 18.3) has been with us
since it was adopted by OAU member states in 1981 twenty-one
years ago. This commitment has awesome implications, and implies a
massive reform of statutory law, customary law and administrative
practice in every African country. It also implies the introduction
of anti-discrimination legislation, to outlaw all practices that
discriminate against women. What has been our progress since then?
What have African governments done to end the discriminatory laws
enacted and administered by themselves?

And does the formation of the African Union indicate a sudden
seriousness to implement this principle of gender equality?
Unfortunately, the analysis of this paper indicates that NEPAD and
the African Union both clearly exhibit a continuation of exactly
the same pattern, of expressing fine sounding principles which do
not lead to any subsequent action. Nor do they lead to proposals
for action, or the prospect of action, or even an administrative
framework which might enable action.

It is hoped that the analysis of this paper will serve to dispel
any foolish illusion that African governments, as presently
constituted, are likely to pursue policies concerned with equal
rights for women irrespective of how much they claim to commit
themselves to the principles of democracy, good governance and
human rights, especially for the purpose of collecting donor
funding.

If strategies of action for women's rights are based on the
benevolence and generosity of males, to voluntarily give away their
present domination and privilege, then it is based on complete
folly. Equal rights of oppressed peoples are never given; they
always have to be taken.

Strategies of action have to be based on a proper and realistic
assessment of the present situation, and the obstacles. It also has
to be based on an assessment of the weakness in the position of
those who hold power. This paper itself exposes one such weakness,
in the ideological contradiction and hypocrisy of governments which
claim to adhere to a particular set of democratic principles
applicable to all, but actually do the opposite when their
sectional interests are threatened.

Such understanding is the beginning of strategising. How does the
women's movement get together and challenge patriarchal government
on particular issues? How can patriarchal government be pushed to
international embarrassment by exposure of ideological
contradiction between word and deed on women's rights. Where are
the more general issues, which lend themselves to a general African
women's coalition for action? Which are the issues where women,
despite their socialisation into patriarchal belief, can
nonetheless readily see that they are being discriminated against
and oppressed? Where are the possibilities of North-South alliances
within the sisterhood, for support from others who have already won
some of these battles? Which are the development agencies, whether
bilateral or NGO, which can be conscripted to the side of the
battle for women's rights? Can progress on women's advancement be
made a conditionality in granting development aid to patriarchal
governments?

We need to discuss these strategic issues of patriarchal
opposition, instead of basing our discussion on some starry eyed
belief that men will voluntarily relinquish their privileges.

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