Pambazuka News 270: AU and Reproductive Health Rights
Pambazuka News 270: AU and Reproductive Health Rights
VERDICT & SENTENCE We, the Judges of this Asian Peoples Tribunal on Poverty and Debt, after a most careful consideration of the testimonies brought here by advocate witnesses find the Respondents, the IMF and the World Bank, guilty of the following charges:
This brief highlights the issue of trade barriers in southern Africa and its impact on informal cross boarder trade in the region. The report shows that while there may be surpluses in neighbouring countries, food deficit countries such as Zimbabwe continue to experience a high grain prices due to import/export restrictions.
The Rwandan government and the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) have resolved their differences, which had prompted Rwanda to threaten to cut ties with the court, Rwandan Attorney-General Martin Ngoga said. He made the announcement at a news conference in the capital, Kigali, after a meeting on Tuesday between a delegation from the Tanzania-based tribunal and senior Rwandan prosecutors.
Residents of two Burundian provinces that are strongholds of the Forces nationales de libération (FNL) rebel group, which has agreed a ceasefire with the government, have expressed concern over continued ‘taxation’ by the rebels. The residents are also worried that the FNL is recruiting civilians to its ranks "as potential beneficiaries of demobilisation fees".
Civil Society Organisations and inter-governmental agencies met in Liberia recently to discuss, among other issues, Liberia's post-conflict debt and reconstruction. After a highly successful and well-attended dialogue, they issued a statement.
The government's withdrawal of free agricultural inputs for new farmers is certain to affect food production adversely, analysts are warning. Farmers who were allocated land under the fast-track land reform programme that began in 2000 have received fertilisers and seed for the past three years, for which they could pay after the harvest, but last month the agriculture ministry announced that it had stopped the "free" inputs scheme.
The psychological effects of Britain's policy of locking up asylum-seekers were demonstrated yesterday at an inquest into the death of an Angolan man who took his life so that his teenage son might stay in Britain. Tim Finch, director at the Refugee Council, said afterwards: "This totally heartbreaking case is not an isolated one. These cases show the level of desperation of people in these centres.
Internal conflicts based on ethnic tensions and rivalries, political instability, disputes over the control of natural resources, natural disasters, poverty, food insecurity and the imperatives of development have all resulted in significant displacement in West Africa.
Cote d'Ivoire’s President Laurent Gbagbo has said he believes the UN roadmap meant to bring peace to the country has “failed” and he will not attend a United Nations meeting in New York next week that was meant to yield a new way forward. "It is four years now that we are in this process and we are not reaching peace. That means the process has failed," Gbagbo told hundreds of army troops invited to a meeting at the presidential palace in the main city Abidjan on Thursday evening.
The government of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have agreed to end two decades of hostilities in the northern part of the country. This is good news. But, only serious international pressure can ensure that the Juba talks progress into a definite peace. The regime of Youweri Museveni has invested massively in a campaign of deception and disinformation, aimed at concealing a methodical and comprehensive genocide in northern Uganda, conceived and conducted by the government.
When adults wage war, children pay the highest price. Children are the primary victims of armed conflict. They are both its targets and increasingly its instruments. Their suffering bears many faces, in the midst of armed conflict and its aftermath. Children are killed or maimed, made orphans, abducted, deprived of education and health care, and left with deep emotional scars and trauma.
AS THE United Nations (UN) Security Council was preparing to reassess today the situation in Côte d'Ivoire in relation to its resolution 1633, President Laurent Gbagbo launched a stinging attack on the UN and France for their perceived role in hampering the Ivorian peace process.
Zambian elections on 28 September are on course but for lack of women representation, which is down from five years ago. Just 103 women are contesting against 606 men for the 150 parliamentary seats available, according to figures from the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ). This represents 15 percent women representation in the polls. Unless all women candidates are elected, which is unlikely, the proportion will be lower when the final results are announced.
The problem of limited access to contraceptives is taking centre stage at an African Union (AU) meeting currently underway in Maputo. Since Monday, health experts have been holding talks in the Mozambican capital about a plan of action that seeks to provide comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services across the continent.
"Women are born to live and not to die", declared Mozambique's former first lady, Graca Machel on Saturday. Machel, who currently heads one of Mozambique's best-known NGOs, the Community Development Foundation (FDC), was speaking at the opening session in Maputo of a meeting of African Women Leaders, and she was referring to the high rates of maternal mortality in Africa.
SIAVONGA district health acting director Dr Joseph Kabungo has urged government to complete the construction of the maternity ward at the district hospital. In an interview, Dr Kabungo said it was not right for expectant mothers to be using the general female admission ward for delivery.
The Islamic Courts headquartered in Mogadishu have for the first time announced they would open training camps for Mogadishu's public school pupils for preparation of holy war against the foreign peacekeepers expected to arrive in Somalia early October. Fu'ad Mohammed Kalaf, the head of the Islamc Courts education section, said, "We are in process of readying the students to engage in the "jihad" war and we have opened training camps for the students in Mogadishu", said Fu,ad.
Liberians are apt to lose the forty percent of the National Forestry Reform Law of 2006 exclusively reserved for them on all established commercial forestry areas. According to a release issued by Mr. Oscar Cooper, Chief Executive Officer of the Inland Logging Corporation, the House and the Senate are being coerced by the International Community through the United Nations to change the newly passed "National Forestry Reform Law of 2006".
Latest satellite images of the natural resources of Africa show that it is under an environmental assault of bigger proportions which could have disturbing consequences on the livelihood of people across the continent in future. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which launched a new atlas at an international water conference held in the Swedish capital of Stockholm last month, Africa's river basins, fresh water lakes, forests, coastal lagoons and wildlife sanctuaries are under siege from unsustainable exploitation.
In just over two years of DNA testing, I may have become the most genetically well-documented Black person to date. I have cajoled and convinced relatives to assist me in this quest by swabbing the inside of their cheeks in furtherance of the family good.
Race remains our national obsession — even when we talk of it in code. And so issues which clearly reflect our racial divides are more likely to be seen by all of us, and to command our attention: witness last week’s dispute about company employment equity reports.
The downward trend in asylum applications in most industrialised countries continues unabated, according to the latest UNHCR statistical report. Based on provisional data provided to UNHCR by governments, the report indicates that during the first six months of this year, a total of 134,900 asylum applications were submitted in Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
In an attempt to educate the American public about the violence and oppression they charge is intrinsic in the diamond trade, the African People's Solidarity Committee is launching a national action campaign against the diamond industry with a series of demonstrations and actions targeting diamonds retailers in U.S. cities.
The first round of applications will be due on October 3, 2006. Applications received after the deadline will not be considered. Short-listed candidates will be notified in November and must submit a second application by January 5, 2007. The HRAP 2007 application form is now available. Those who have questions about the application process should contact Program staff at [email][email protected] or by phone at +1 212 854 3014.
Southern Africa’s public health services are in a state of emergency. Bad pay and working conditions, plus the impact of HIV/Aids, are bleeding the system of its most valuable resource: people. With the cost of training a general practice doctor estimated to be $60 000, and that of training a medical auxiliary at $12 000, the African Union estimates that low income countries subsidise high income countries to the tune of $500-million a year through the loss of their health workers.
International waste removal experts in protective suits and masks have begun cleaning up toxic waste that was dumped in several areas of Abidjan in a scandal that has further raised tension in the city as the end of the president’s term approaches. Seven deaths have been attributed to the waste, although autopsies have yet to confirm the cause.
Imagining Ourselves launched with a published anthology and an online exhibit on International Women's Day, March 8, 2006. The project received great acclaim and widespread media attention around the globe, from articles in Bombay's TimeOut Magazine to television coverage in Tijuana and numerous reports in the San Francisco media.
e-CIVICUS provides weekly news on civil society worldwide, news about CIVICUS and its members and provides links to useful electronic and print resources aimed at strengthening civil society worldwide.
At least 22,000 Somali refugees have arrived in Kenya since the beginning of this year to join 130,000 others others who have lived in refugee camps in the remote, arid Dadaab area in the country's Northeastern Province since 1991. Although most of the new arrivals early this year fled because of food shortages after the drought, people also sought to escape the warfare that engulfed Mogadishu from February to June as the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) fought and eventually dislodged an alliance of warlords from the city.
Some 350,000 people in Sudan's war-ravaged west could be displaced if African Union forces leave Darfur when their mandate expires at the end of the month, the United Nations has said. It forecast that if the 7,000-strong AU force pulled out of Darfur, humanitarian access there would deteriorate dramatically as attacks on vehicles made road travel impossible outside urban centres.
Two groups of 56 and 48 clandestine migrants were arrested in Dakar and Thies, east of Dakar, last week by Senegalese authorities. The arrests were the first involving non-African migrants in the country, who were attempting to make it to the Canary Islands from where they hoped to be allowed to stay in mainland Europe.
Nkrumah Mushelenga, who in June was appointed as Commissioner of Refugees at Home Affairs and Immigration, faces an uphill task to ensure he fulfills the Namibia Refugee Recognition Control Act and other conventions on refugees. Thus far, he has issued a five-point directive of what he terms core values to be strictly adhered to by refugee administrative staff under his command and to make sure their conduct either on or off-duty complies with and reflects the values of the 1951 UN Geneva Convention and the OAU Convention governing specific aspects of African refugees.
"As you crawl through the tiny hole, using your arms and fingers to scratch, there's not enough space to dig properly and you get badly grazed all over. And then, when you do finally come back out with the cassiterite, the soldiers are waiting to grab it at gunpoint. Which means you have nothing to buy food with. So we're always hungry."
Zambia's general election, set for 28 September, is expected to be a bitter and closely contested affair. Political analysts believe the country's fourth multiparty poll since it emerged from 27 years of one-party rule in 1991 will be a hard-fought contest for the incumbent, President Levy Mwanawasa of the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD), who is seeking a second and final term of office.
Uganda would continue to respect a landmark truce with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) that expires shortly, ahead of a review to be instituted right away, the government’s chief negotiator said. Interior Minister Ruhakana Rugunda told a press conference in Kampala on Tuesday that the truce would remain in force until his team met the LRA in Juba this week.
This past Sunday marked the Global Day of Action for Darfur. The aim was “to show world-wide support for the Darfuri people and to put pressure on our Governments to protect the civilians.” A number of African bloggers posted special pieces to mark the day.
‘Wordsbody’ - (http://wordsbody.blogspot.com/2006/09/endgame-in-darfur.html) a literary blog by Molara Wood, wrote a moving piece entitled “Endgame in Darfur”. Wood reminded us of the “never again” mantra echoed after the Rwandan genocide just over 10 years ago.
“Now it is Darfur. The World again is being its (or is it her?) old useless self. The World is being racist again. Not only are the people being killed in Darfur as black as night, they are Africans - a terrible thing to be if you want the World to care about you.”
Wood continues, “What is more, the Dead, Dying and Displaced of Darfur are Muslims. I don’t know what is the worse thing to be in the current World order - African or Muslim. The people of Darfur have a terrible Double Whammy of an albatross round their necks.”
She writes about the “anxiety” being expressed by various people, countries and organisations over the genocide that is taking place before our eyes. Wood wonders: “And so the new anxiety. And how inadequate a word is ‘Anxiety’. But what word should we grasp and attempt to speak, to express the unthinkable?
"And is the new ‘anxiety’ because Hollywood liberal George Clooney spent 5 days with his father in Darfur in April, and in the last few days urged the US government to do something about 'the first Genocide of the 21st century'"
'Mshairi' - Mshairi (http://www.mshairi.com/blog/2006/09/17/suffer-the-little-children) posted a poem titled “Suffer The Little Children”. Here is a short excerpt:
Who will weep for me?
I died
Famished
Belly distended
Flies clustered
Over my face
Gunfire and screams
The last sounds
I heard
'Alexcia' - Alexcia (http://alexcia.blogspot.com/2006/09/global-day-for-darfur.html) tells us the meaning of Darfur – Land of the Fur. She writes:
“Death and Funeral announcement
Here lies eighty thousands souls
Names and identities – unknown
Passions and pains – unknown
Feelings and fears – unknown
Origin and nationality – Western Sudan Darfur region
Now buried in a mass grave known as Darfur Crisis
All died at home from a janjaweed epidemic
Two million others infected of unknown origin
Inadequate attention from United Nations is believe to have
Played a part in these deaths…”
'Sudanese Thinker' - Sudanese Thinker (http://www.sudanesethinker.com/2006/09/19/jews-stay-away-next-time-p/) reports on a counter demonstration held in Khartoum in which the Global Day for Darfur was labeled a “Jewish Conspiracy”. Demonstrators predictably opposed the deployment of troops in Darfur. Drima (Sudanese Thinker) also takes issue with the lack of protests against the genocide by the Muslim world.
“By the way were there any rallies in the Muslim world to protest the ruthless killing and suffering of “blackies” in Darfur? Okay fine, fine. I’ll stop being the cynical person I am. There were small tiny efforts in Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and Cairo. I’m starting to see the “light”. In 5 years time we’ll protest things like Darfur besides continuing our violent protests against the Pope. Great improvement huh?!”
'Black Looks' - black Looks (http://www.blacklooks.org/2006/09/global_day_for_darfur_.html) points to an article in African Action looking at some of the similarities between the response of the USA to Rwanda and their response to Darfur. In the case of Rwanda the focus was on Yugoslavia and in the case of Darfur…
“In Darfur at present, the U.S. is focused more urgently on the crisis in the Middle East, on the war in Iraq and on the so-called “War on Terrorism”, which are estimated to be more pressing policy priorities than genocide in Africa.”
'Passion of the Present' passion of the present (http://platform.blogs.com/passionofthepresent/2006/09/global_day_for__1....)has a roundup of the events across the globe to mark the Global day of Action for Darfur.
*Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, www.blacklooks.org
*Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
"....Today, half of all international migrants-95 million-are women and girls. Yet, despite substantial contributions to both their families at home and communities abroad, the needs of migrant women continue to be overlooked and ignored."
On July 30, 2006, the Congolese people demonstrated their desire for a peaceful and democratic process in the Congo by exercising a basic human right denied to them for the last 40 years: they voted. The long overdue presidential election received praise from all corners of the globe. Unfortunately, when the Independent Electoral Commission announced a run-off election would be necessary, supporters of both leading candidates in Kinshasa responded with violence.
On October 7th, 2006, a conference will convene at the African Caribbean Centre in London to build an international organisation to coordinate efforts to unify and liberate Africa and place it’s vast resources into the hands of African workers and poor peasants.
Sustainability Watch Network has released its first international report dubbed "Implementation Barriers to Sustainable Development" which shall be launched on 20th September 2006 in Singapore during the IMF/WORLD BANK meeting.
The most-wanted Rwandan genocide suspect, Felician Kabuga, is hiding in Kenya and efforts are under way to arrest him, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Hassan Jallow, said.
Health officials in Tanzania's semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar predict a drastic drop in the number of malaria cases on the island after a successful mosquito control campaign. The manager of Zanzibar's Malaria Control Programme (ZMCP), Abdallah Suleiman, said on Friday the island had met the 90-percent coverage of the area targeted for residual spraying in the 54-day programme.
Prosecutor's Response to Cassese's Observation on Issues Concerning the Protection of Victims and the Preservation of Evidence in the Proceedings on Darfur Pending before the ICC.
SUB Themes:
1.ICT, Gender and Role of Education Planner and Manager
2.I.T and Implication for language education
3.Impact of counseling to women/youth education through ICT
4.Adult education and ICT: towards development and women/youth education
ARTICLE 19 is looking for a Fundraiser to support the organisation’s continued growth and help increase our impact on freedom of expression. You will be responsible for coordinating, stewarding and ensuring effective implementation of ARTICLE 19’s fundraising strategy for government, trusts, foundations and potential corporate sponsors.
Widespread rape and a culture of impunity in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are undermining the country’s progress, Jan Egeland, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, has told the UN Security Council. “Sexual abuse has become a cancer in Congolese society that seems to be out of control,” Egeland said as he recounted his recent trip to the DRC, where, he said, nearly all women he spoke to had been raped.
President Robert Mugabe has grabbed a huge financial lifeline from China to boost Zimbabwe's ailing economy but analysts wonder what the country had to offer in exchange for the loan. Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono, tasked to turn around an economy in recession for the last eight years, on Wednesday announced a $200m facility from China as part of nearly half a billion dollars worth of mainly foreign loans.
In the next few days IRIN will be releasing the latest of its short documentary films and we are requesting subscribers to order online as per the link below if they wish to receive a copy.In the context of the current peace talks being held between the Ugandan Government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army, IRIN's award-winning Film Unit is launching a short film examining how the country will move on from the experience of two decades of year.
The beating stopped as the sun began to go down. After two-and-a-half hours, the fourteen men and one woman held at Matapi police station in Mbare township, Harare, had suffered five fractured arms, seven hand fractures, two sets of ruptured eardrums, fifteen cases of severe buttock injuries, deep soft-tissue bruising all over, and open lacerations.
Hundreds today (September 16) marched through Leeds city centre in an unprecedented show of solidarity with asylum seekers facing the resumption of forced deportations to Zimbabwe. Organised by the Zimbabwe Refugee Community Organisation, with support from Leeds No Borders and the regional Refugee Council, the protest began outside Leeds Central Library at 12pm and attracted a genuine social movement coalition of exiled Zimbabweans, other migrant groups, local campaigners, trade unionists and church representatives.
Pro democracy groups in Zimbabwe have maintained they will continue with their protests for change and that recent attempts by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) to embark on mass protests was just a curtain raiser for more action in the country. In separate interviews, the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), The Zimbabwe National Student Union (ZINASU), Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) and the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) said Zimbabwe will see more spontaneous action by the individual groups working in a non violent way.
Late last month, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) finally announced the dates on which next year’s scheduled general and presidential elections are to be held. According to INEC Chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu, who spoke at the National Forum on 2007 Elections in Abuja, governorship and state assembly elections are to hold throughout the country on April 14, whereas presidential and National Assembly elections are to hold a week later, on April 21.
Barely a month after President Bingu wa Mutharika suspended Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Director Gustave Kaliwo and fired Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Ishmael Wadi, a report on the justice sector and rule of law in Malawi says the Executive interferes with and undermines the independence of both offices.
Eight out of the 11 newly elected women MPs were sworn in during the plenary chaired by Speaker Edward Ssekandi. Former Lira Municipality MP Ceclia Ogwal, took the spotlight during the ceremony. Ogwal, popularly known as the 'iron lady,' had lost her seat in the last parliamentary elections to Jimmy Akena, son of former President Milton Obote.
Billions of shillings from corrupt deals are about to be seized by anti-graft chiefs. The cash has been stashed in 78 bank accounts belonging to politicians from the current and previous regimes, prominent businessmen and former senior civil servants, including permanent secretaries. Court warrants allowing the accounts to be seized and the proceeds recovered by the State are already in the hands of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, its director Aaron Ringera confirmed.
Conservative MPs are on a collision course with a Constitutional Court ruling granting same-sex unions the same rights as traditional marriages. This time they are up in arms over a homosexual couple being able to adopt a “girl child”. For the second time in as many weeks MPs have objected to the Civil Union Bill, which has now been officially introduced to Parliament.
High international oil prices have emboldened Algeria to make a u-turn on earlier attempts at liberalising the sector. Algeria, which was a member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), has slapped a windfall tax on surplus profits as well as curtailed the role of foreign investors in oil production in a set of new amendments for the sector. The new provisions require that state-owned Sonatrach, Africa’s largest company by revenue, take a mandatory minimum 51 percent stake in all exploration and production ventures.
Life-prolonging anti-retro-viral trimune drugs worth $700,000 have expired in Uganda's National Medical Stores while thousands of people living with HIV/Aids struggle to stay alive. Trimune is a first-line regimen drug favoured by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for use in many developing countries.
Thousands of Nubian archeological sites will be flooded by a dam that the Sudanese government is building at the Nile's Fourth Cataract. When the Chinese-backed hydro-electricity project is finished in mid-2008, it will create a lake 170 kilometres long and up to four kilometres wide. Much of the Nubian heartland will lie at the bottom.
Patents and copyright laws are major stumbling blocks to breaking the market dominance of expensive, proprietary software, Meraka Institute's Bob Joliffe told Highway Africa delegates in Grahamstown. Jolliffe, who was presenting a paper at the Highway Africa conference, said countries like South Africa have developed a lot of software in different areas using open source, but have been prevented from making further improvements because of copyright laws.
Software Freedom Day is a day set aside to celebrate the benefits and virtues of free and open source software. Globally free software enthusiasts arrange events, demonstrations, carnivals and conferences in celebration. For some, like those in South Africa, the events are usually well attended and popular. But for many the challenges of spreading the free software ideals are a lot more difficult. In Burundi, a small landlocked nation in the heart of Africa nestled between Rwanda, Tanzania and Lake Tanganyika, software is not an issue high on very many people's agenda.
On August 29 2006, seven Southern and Eastern African countries signed the Inter-Governmental Protocol of the Inter-Government Authority(IGA) of the East and Southern African Submarine System (EASSy). This is the governmental framework through the New Partnership for Africa's Development(Nepad) within which the cable is going to be owned, built and operated.
In this article, Hugh McCullum gives a clear and complete indication of what lies behind Zimbabwe's present chaotic state. From Cecil Rhodes, through Ian's Smith UDI, to farm invasions, political violence and slum clearance under Robert Mugabe, land has been the problem.
When the United Nations decided in 1971 to create the concept of "least developed countries" (LDCs) -- a new category of member states needing special social and economic assistance from the international community - they were described as the "poorest of the world's poor".
Rwanda has accused a U.N. court trying masterminds of the 1994 genocide of recruiting genocide suspects and said it would stop cooperating with the Tanzanian-based tribunal if it took no action. Relations between Rwanda and the Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) have been strained over an incident earlier this month in which Tanzanian authorities arrested a Rwandan lawyer working for ICTR.
Despite the phenomenal progress that the country has posted in various fields of endeavour, particularly on the social front as society pursues its relentless drive towards modernity and sophistication, Zimbabwean men remain, for the most part, deeply steeped in superstition and myths.
Claire Panosian Dunavan writes there is plenty of blame to go around when it comes to the flawed distribution of malaria-fighting drugs to developing countries, particularly in Africa. Citing the recent decision by the pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis to destroy an effective anti-malarial drug due to short shelf life and export complications, the professor of health and infectious diseases at the University of California, Los Angeles, argues that better distribution methods may be found as new health initiatives flow into Africa.
Africa is the only continent where the number of desperately poor people continues to grow and social indicators keep worsening. But the continent is not poor. Tens of billions of dollars worth of oil, minerals and other natural resources are being taken out of Africa every year. In a cruel phenomenon known as the 'resource curse,' the countries richest in natural resources are often where corruption, human rights violations and destruction of the environment lead to further impoverishment and sometimes armed conflict.
This article looks at Africa's quest for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Although Africa is considered the most egalitarian and consensual regional group in its methods for nominating states for non-permanent seats, sharp rivalries emerged in the campaign for the proposed new permanent seat(s).
Presidential elections in the Ivory Coast will not take place by October 2006, as mandated by the UN Security Council. The International Crisis Group blames the "deliberate strategy of politicians who want no peace they cannot dominate," and warns that a failure to set a new date for elections may reinstate the country's civil war. The report calls for a six month extension of the transition period and urges the UN Security Council to implement the targeted sanctions imposed by Resolution 1572.
Human traffickers make good business taking poorly educated girls from Nigerian villages to toil as domestic workers in the sprawling urban throb of Lagos. But the girls, some as young as five years old, see little or none of their earnings. Tonia Ayo-Ola, 19, has worked for three months without a day off. Each morning she is up by 6 a.m. preparing breakfast for her "master".
Eight female African Journalists have scooped different awards this year at the second Gender and Media Awards (GEM) while three went to men. Four awards were taken by Zimbabweans, two by South African, and Swaziland and Seychelles each grabbed one. The competition was highly contested compared to the last summit of 2004 with 187 entries from 13 submissions. 108 female journalists and 79 male journalists entered submissions in 11 categories.
Chartered planes have started flying illegal African immigrants back from Spain to Senegal, resuming a repatriation program aimed at stemming the flow of immigrants to this southern European country. But judging by experience, the return is unlikely to stop thousands of others from risking their lives in small boats to reach the Canary Islands from the West African coast, or finding other perilous ways of reaching the European continent.
In low-income countries like Tanzania where half of the population lives in extreme poverty, child labor is considered as a means of survival for many families and not necessarily abuse. Children in Tanzania are compelled by economic needs to trade-off school time to work as rock crushers in local quarries, farm workers, miners, domestic servants, and prostitutes - in most cases under intolerant and exploitive conditions.
Kenya’s official human rights watchdog has awarded local journalist, Peter Makori, Shs 5 million (around $69 000) as compensation for malicious arrest and prosecution over the murder of two provincial administrators two years ago, writes Eric Nyakagwa. In its first human rights violations ruling, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR)’s complaints panel ordered the government to pay him compensation for his unlawful arrest and detention.
The concern shared by some locals in Uganda that International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments against leaders of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) could jeopardize the peace process in the country's north do not outweigh the need to ensure there is no impunity for mass murder, the top United Nations humanitarian official has said.
Prepared by Louis-Dominique Ouédraogo this publication contributes in raising awareness on the potential role of open source software (OSS) for the achievement of specific objectives set in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Plan of Action adopted in 2003 by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). From the summary: There is a wide consensus that the use of ICT can foster the implementation of development goals in general and those of the Millennium Development Goals in particular.
This UNESCO publication was released by the International Institute for Educational Planning and written by Susan D'Antoni. E-learning and the virtual university are examples of the use of information and communication technology (ICT) as a teaching and learning approach and an organizational structure. Both raise issues associated with the phenomenon of cross-border education.
The Global Development Awards and Medals Competition is the largest international contest for research on development. Through this competition launched in 2000 with the support of the Government of Japan, we seek to unearth new talent and support innovative ideas. Over 3,000 researchers representing more than 100 countries throughout the developing world have participated to date. More than US $ 1.91 million has been distributed in prizes and travel to finalists and winners.
Every year some half a million women in the developing world die from complications related to pregnancy and child birth, and "it should be an international scandal" that the numbers have stayed that high over the last quarter of a century," columnist Nicholas D. Kristof writes after visiting a hospital in Yokadouma, Cameroon.
Part of Kenyan President Kibaki's re-election strategy is to weaken civil society, if not kill this country’s once-powerful civil society movement, reports the East African Standard. In addition to the government's publicly stated intention to reduce the powers of the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK), the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) are preparing abuses of maladmistration charges against Mr Maina Kiai, the KNCHR chairman.
What do violence and non-violence mean in today’s world? What are the historical, legal, political perspectives on these concepts? In connection with the universally recognised “Non-Violence Day”, yearly festival of Gandhi Jayanti (2 October 1869 - Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday), and the National Day of India, ASSP (Associazione Studenti di Scienze Politiche) and The Group of Afro-Oriental Studies of the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Trieste invite you to discover the answer to these questions at the International Association of Political Science Stduents Annual Academic Conference 2006.
2006 marks the 16th anniversary of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence campaign. Since 1991, the 16 Days campaign has worked to increase the visibility of violence against women as a human rights violation. This year, the campaign celebrates activists who have made the campaign a success and honours women human rights defenders who have suffered intimidation and violence for their activism and/or have given their lives fighting for gender equality.
The Council on Foundations believes that extraordinary efforts deserve widespread recognition. Therefore, the Council is seeking nominations for grant-funded projects that have had a demonstrated impact on the common good. Civil society that can serve as models for others in philanthropy is encouraged to apply.
The Best Practices in Global Health Award is given annually to celebrate and highlight the efforts of a public health practitioner or organisation dedicated to improving the health of disadvantaged and disenfranchised populations, and to recognise the programmes that effectively demonstrate the link between health, poverty and development.
Covered in ochre-dusted red cloth, four young Maasai men guide a herd of cattle across the busy road to Nairobi. Among the herd are several zebras, not ready yet to be separated from the livestock. The herders don't seem to mind their presence. From this town — Kitengela, in the Kajiado district — Nairobi's skyscrapers are clearly visible in the distance.
Recent clashes between Swazi university students and riot police have brought a burgeoning education crisis into sharp relief, but went unreported by the state radio and television networks. Street battles erupted after students marched on Prime Minister Themba Dlamini's offices demanding that the government honour its university scholarship commitments.
Police in Zimbabwe on Sunday (September 17) denied reports that shots were fired at the home of Anti-Corruption Minister Paul Mangwana. "Only stones were thrown at Mangwana's Harare home late Saturday and a policeman fired warning shots at the assailants," police spokesman Oliver Mandipaka told state radio. The minister claimed he was being intimidated because of his fight against corruption.
Locusts have invaded farms in Nigeria, destroying crops as farmers prepare for harvest, officials have said. Diyos Auta, state agriculture commissioner for Taraba, in the centre of the country, said the locusts had destroyed 50 000ha of crops in the past week. "These pests migrated from neighbouring Cameroon and they move like clouds and so far they have destroyed 50 000ha of crops, which were ripe for harvest," he said.
Imperial Fleet Services (IFS), a wholly owned subsidiary of South African corporate giant Imperial, is embroiled in a scandal concerning the Lesotho government fleet contract which has rocked the mountain kingdom. In terms of a deal the Lesotho government cut with IFS Lesotho, senior government officials, including ministers, judges and parliamentary officers, can buy three-year-old government vehicles at 1% of their original value.
Pambazuka News 269: Ivory Coast: Dynamics of mediation
Pambazuka News 269: Ivory Coast: Dynamics of mediation
Next week on the 18th of September in New York, the Peace and Security Council of the African Union will have an emergency meeting on the margin of the UN General Assembly. The PSC will decide on the future of the 7000 AU troops in the face of ongoing military escalation of the crisis in Darfur, the recent UN Security Council resolution 1706 to sent 20,00 troops and the Sudanese Government’s refusal to allow the UN mission to proceed. It is critical that members of the public, non-governmental organizations and Parliamentarians raise their voices at this time. Key to African leadership on this issue are 15 Ministers from Algeria, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, and Uganda who will be attending this Peace and Security Council meeting. It is imperative that they agree on a number of key demands. For more information on the Darfur crisis and the Day of Action for Darfur
China's ascendance as a global economic superpower obviously poses a threat to what the author calls "the culture of domination by the economically strong [West]". African countries might choose to associate with China not only because it produces more affordable goods, but because of cultural similarities and a sense of humility quite opposite from Western self-congratulation.
Freedom of the press in Sudan has been heavily curtailed in the past month amidst renewed international criticism of the Sudanese government over the human rights crisis in Darfur. A journalist has been murdered, two foreign reporters charged with espionage and several local journalists harassed and beaten by police, report the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF).
The second Gender and Media summit closed in Johannesburg Friday (September 9) with a call for greater media diversity in all areas - ownership, content and audiences. Held under the theme "Media Diversity: Good for Democracy, good for business" the summit highlighted a number of ways in which the media is failing in one of its core functions - giving voice to the voiceless.
The State of the Right to Education Worldwide / Free or Fee: 2006 Global Report
This report recently published and written by Katarina Tomasevski will "make you angry" says the author. "It reveals how ill fares the right to education today. Globally, it is denied despite pretty United Nations’ rhetoric on human rights mainstreaming and rights-based development.
Follow the link for a message in solidarity with communities in the Niger Delta region, submitted at a public forum organised by ERA in collaboration with TWN Africa.
China had plans to finance the construction of a third hydro-electric dam, said the Guinean energy minister. Thierno Habib Diallo said that the 500mW hydro-electric dam with an estimated price tag of $609mn would be built at Soapil, on a Konkour River tributary, in the Lower Guinea Kindia Prefecture. Diallo said a Chinese team would shortly arrive in Conakry to look into the feasibility studies of the project.
Pambazuka News 268: Special Issue: Women, trade and justice
Pambazuka News 268: Special Issue: Women, trade and justice
Africa has faced ten years of unfettered liberalisation that, argues Cheikh Tidiane Dièye, has left the continent on its knees. Women, more than any other group, suffer the weight of the constraints of poverty largely brought about by the world trade system. It is women that must play a crucial role in winning the struggle for a better trading system.
Even though over the last twenty years many African nations have adopted sometimes draconian economic reforms, the benefits of trade liberalisation that were promised have not materialised. On the other hand, developed nations have enjoyed 70% of the wealth generated by trade liberalisation. In some respects, world trade regulations, defined for the most part by industrialised countries during the Uruguay Round agreements between 1986 and 1994, have only increased Africa’s economic problems.
Before an “ambiguous consensus” [1] was reached at Doha, which was at the heart of the launch of the round of multilateral negotiations that tool place at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the “battle of Seattle” or “Seattle showdown” [2] revealed to the world the growing dissatisfaction of developing countries with regard to the WTO, whose way of working did not appear to respond to their profound desire for economic progress and development.
With the support of powerful groups of NGOs, they then put into practice their power to block negotiations by refusing to submit to a potential consensus. With this action that was previously unheard of, developing countries, and particularly those in Africa, managed to draw the attention of the international community and the representatives of multilateral institutions to the stark inequalities brought about by inequitable globalisation, whose consequences have been hundreds of millions of human beings being reduced to near total destitution and the almost irreversible destruction of the environment.
This is why in Seattle, while the United Nations and Europe were seeking to enter into a “Millennium Round” of large-scale negotiations concerning new and complex issues, particularly in relation to investment policy, competition, electronic commerce and standards in the areas of labour rights and the environment, a large number of African countries advocated a “Development Round” which would allow interlocutors to discuss the implementation of regulations from the Uruguay Round directly concerning developing countries and to urge industrialised countries to honour their commitments. In this way, these nations hoped finally to succeed in opening developed countries’ markets to their exports, eliminating other structural imbalances that were unfavourable to developing nations, removing tariff, non-tariff and technical barriers imposed on the exports of less developed countries, and developing and making official WTO technical aid and capacity building programmes.
From this perspective, the group of African countries proposed to renew and apply the “special and preferential” measures from the Uruguay agreements, which aimed to facilitate the integration of developing countries into the world trading system.
After Seattle failed, the fourth WTO ministerial conference was held in November 2001 at Doha, Qatar, and the members had a common desire to correct the malfunctioning of the multilateral trading system. The developed countries made promises, among which were to reduce or remove subsidies causing imbalances in global markets, to remove obstacles blocking developing countries’ products entering their markets, to recognise and make effective special and differential treatment, to facilitate poor countries’ access to essential drugs and to create the conditions necessary for the greater participation of these nations in trade negotiations through technical aid and capacity building.
On the other hand, the dogged will of the developed countries to defend the interests of some of their privileged citizens and their multinationals straight away took priority over ethical considerations and concerns for the survival of African populations: access to essential drugs for millions of sick Africans is still being blocked due to market interests; millions of farmers sink into poverty each day as a result of the North’s illegal subsidies [3]; and the pressure to increase the liberalisation of basic social services such as water, education, energy and healthcare is about to destroy what remains of African economies.
One of the most tangible characteristics of African poverty is its “femininity”. Statistics show that African women, more so than any other category, suffer the damaging effects of poverty and all the constraints brought about by the current structure of global economic and trade relations. In healthcare as well as education, access to land and economic resources, etc., African women have remained well below world averages.
In such a context, it is not difficult to establish a link between the situation of women in Africa and the world trade system, which, even if it is not the only explaining factor, is at the very least an important factor. The financial collapse of agriculture and African industries, caused by the combined effect of liberal policies imposed by international financial institutions and WTO rules, affects both rural and urban women, as it subjects them to chronic food insecurity, begging and the dangers of the informal economy in African towns and cities.
Greater liberalisation does not give rise to human development
Many studies have tried to establish a correlation between the level of openness to trade and increased economic growth and human development. In effect, there is no proof that the liberalisation of exchanges leads automatically to economic growth and human development. In a study [4] looking at the relationship between trade and sustainable human development, the UNDP drew an interesting comparison between two countries, in relation to their level of openness to world trade, to demonstrate such an assertion. These countries are Vietnam and Haiti.
Since the beginning of the 1980s, Vietnam has undertaken a progressive approach to reform. It is not a member country of the WTO. It has organised world trade at the level of the state, has maintained a monopoly over imports, and has preserved quantitative restrictions and high customs duties (30 to 50%) on imports of agricultural and industrial products. However, despite these measures being contrary to the “formulas” often advocated by those who hold neo-liberal doctrines, Vietnam has had spectacular success by achieving a growth rate higher than 8% per annum since the mid-1980s, which has earned the country a 12% increase in trade, a considerably reduced level of poverty, including in rural areas and in vulnerable groups (women and young people), and has attracted high levels of foreign direct investment.
Haiti, on the other hand, has become involved in an ambitious road to liberalisation and total openness since 1994/1995. The country has brought its customs tariffs down to a maximum of 15% and has removed all quantitative restrictions. For all this, Haiti’s economy has not evolved. Social indicators have even deteriorated and poverty has, in places, reached worrying levels. Although a member of the WTO, Haiti is one of the most marginal countries in terms of integration into world trade.
Looking at Africa, an analysis of the evolution of world trade over the last twenty years shows that the continent has unfortunately not profited from the benefits [5] that were granted and that, despite all the agreements and preferential schemes, Africa’s share of world trade has dropped significantly from 6% in 1980 to 2% in 2004. In effect, since 1980, African exports have increased at the average annual rate of 1.5%, whereas for the world as whole this increased by 5.8% per year.
The social consequences of such economic decline no longer need to be explained. In sub-Saharan Africa, women in certain areas produce up to 80% of basic food products and therefore play a decisive role in food security at the level of both the family and the nation. And in areas where cash crops predominate, reduced earnings resulting from reduced tariff protections and the large-scale entry of imported goods into national markets has exacerbated the vulnerability of women insofar as they have no other option other than to add to the swelling populations of shanty towns to work in order to survive in informal jobs and small trade.
In the industrial sector, WTO agreements concerning rules for market access for non-agricultural goods have imposed drastic cuts in customs duties, which was the only instrument there to protect African industries. This subjects a growing, and consequently vulnerable, African industry to direct confrontation with big corporations from the developed countries, which has quickly worked to the advantage of the latter. The most edifying example today is the African textile industry, in which countries with a definite relative advantage were obliged to cut hundreds of thousands of jobs even before the agreement on quotas was reached in December 2004. And since 2005, China’s powerful entry into the world textile market has heightened the pressure in this sector. Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Ghana, Senegal and other countries are today experiencing the full force of the crisis in this industry, which has a high potential for employment, including a female workforce.
Even if the liberalisation of the textile industry has increased and diversified the supply of goods in African markets, where prices have also tended to drop, such an outcome cannot compensate for the long-term losses that the de-industrialisation of Africa will bring about. This de-industrialisation has only increased the informalisation of the economy by developing trade around goods produced elsewhere.
The WTO ten years on: economic opportunities or fresh risks?
The ten years of liberalisation under the aegis of the WTO needs to be assessed. Disregarding doctrine and squabbles between different schools of thought, it has been widely accepted that for African countries, trade liberalisation has not produced the results one hoped for.
Even if one has to admit that it is often difficult to measure the real impact of WTO rules on the situation of women in Africa, specific studies, of which there is a real shortage in this area, have concluded that this impact is most worrying when compared with the overall assessment of WTO rules on African populations.
Studies conducted into the liberalisation of the water sector in many African countries have shown that it is mainly women who carry the burden of the fresh constraints brought about by the privatisation of these strategic sectors. In the field of work, liberalisation has certainly increased the opportunities available to women in certain countries, but this usually takes place in very poor conditions and often pays much less.
It is remarkable that the mediocre results achieved for African nations after ten years of liberalisation under the aegis of the WTO has not led developed countries to reassess their positions and objectives. If the negotiations have today become bogged down in differences of opinion such that they have been indefinitely “suspended” by the Director of the WTO, this is not because the organisation is trying to take better account of the interests of developing nations, and Africans in particular. The present crisis is mainly down to the battle between the United States and the European Union on the one side, and the G20 [6] on the other. The battle is over the issue of parallelism [7] of forms. The developed countries are calling for the developing countries to impose drastic cuts in customs duties on industrial goods and to commit to the liberalisation of the trade in services, whereas the developing countries are calling for the other nations to reduce their agricultural subsidies.
Given the present crisis and the gloomy prospects at the WTO, the logical conclusion of an evaluation of its ten years of action should be “mission unaccomplished”.
And the question to ask now is what should be the alternative to the WTO? And what would the consequences of a long-term crisis at the WTO be for African people, and women in particular?
It is extremely tempting to respond in a simplistic way by saying that the failure of negotiations at the WTO could only be to the advantage of African countries due to the unfairness of the current rules. However, if one looks at the power relations at the WTO and in the system of world governance, it shows that such a stance does not stand up easily to clear analysis. The failure of trade negotiations would allow the status quo to gain acceptance once and for all, and would reinforce current trade relations, which are mostly to the detriment of African nations.
Therefore, on the contrary, we must relaunch multilateral negotiations and fight, so that the principle of special and differential treatment for African nations is put in place, made effective and made obligatory, in accordance with the Doha mandate in all areas of the negotiations.
Even if the negotiations have still not really advanced the cause of Africa, they at least allow African populations to hold an interest in them, place more popular pressure on governments and negotiators, provide a platform for African states and civil society organisations (NGOs, producer organisations, trade unions, women’s organisations, etc.) to denounce current trade rules and schemes, and reduce the pressure of governments in the North and multilateral institutions who advocate liberalisation in the interests of the rich.
Conclusion
The way in which trade is governed in today’s world leads to necessarily unfair results. But could it be otherwise in a game whose players are not equal?
Whilst the rules that have been set do not allow African nations to develop the means to compensate those who have been damaged by international trade, developed nations have implemented mechanisms to protect themselves from the dangers brought about by liberalisation.
In such a context, the Doha development agenda could only really achieve its goal of creating a framework for development if it allowed the creation of an international environment that guarantees African countries enough flexibility to implement national standards and policies. This would have the effect of helping these nations protect their populations, markets and institutions from the effects of the market.
Such an approach calls upon African leaders to act responsibly. If it is understood that the system governing world trade should take greater account of the opinions of vulnerable populations, one also needs to recognise that this task must first be carried out at the national level. Greater participation of various types of stakeholder, including politicians, NGOs, producer organisations, women, consumers, the private sector, etc., in the development of trade policy is without doubt a pre-requisite in order to make national interests known at WTO negotiations. From the perspective of gender [8], however, even though efforts have been made for years, there remains a serious shortfall that is holding back African negotiation strategies.
* Cheikh Tidiane Dieye is a socio-anthropologist who has been involved in trade and multilateral negotiations on behalf of Enda Tiers-monde, a member of the Africa Trade Network (ATN). He is co-editor of "Footbridges between trade and durable development", a news bulletin on the trade negotiations.
* This is a shortened version of the original French article, which was translated by Timothy Cleary. Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Notes
[1] See Passerelles n° 2 vol 3, November 2001 – January 2002
[2] From a book by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke (“Global Showdown: How the New Activists are Fighting global corporate rule”, 2002), recounting the demonstrations of global citizens’ movements which prevented the launch of the WTO’s “Millenium Round”.
[3] Interesting studies conducted by NGOs such as Enda Third World, Oxfam and the ICSTD have shown the disastrous impact of American subsidies on the African cotton trade. On this, read the “White Paper on Cotton”, Enda Diapol, 2005.
[4] “Making Global Trade Work for People”, UNDP, 2003
[5] Among these relative benefits, one can cite in particular the unreciprocal trade preferences between the EU and the ACP which characterised the Lomé Convention, the flexibility offered to LDCs at the WTO and, more generally, to the generalised system of preferences.
[6] The G20 is a large group of negotiators based around the big developing countries exporting agricultural goods, such as India, Brazil, Argentina, China and South Africa. The group emerged just before the Cancun Confernece in 2003 and is fighting against subsidies in the North.
[7] This is a concept defended by the EU in particular in its commitments. Each group stands firm and asks the other groups to make the first commitments.
[8] Few African delegations at the WTO ministerial conference in Hong Kong included women.
Far from being bad news for Africa, the July collapse of World Trade Organisation talks aimed at fostering a global free trade regime is actually an unexpected bonus. Out of the breakdown in negotiations should come a new trading system that is beneficial to Africa’s women, says Mohau Pheko.
The Collapse of the WTO Doha negotiations are good for Africa and women. This is an opportunity for Africa to move away from the myth that the Doha Round was a 'developmental round'. Nothing could be further from the truth. From the start, the aim of the developed countries was to push for greater market openings from the developing countries while making minimal concessions on their part. Invoking development was a cynical ploy.
The break down of the talks is a turning point for Africa to contribute to developing a multilateral trading system based on developing Africa, women's rights and sustainable development.
During July, in anticipation of the July 27-28 meeting of the World Trade Organisation's General Council, a major rescue effort was mounted to save the "Doha Round" of global trade negotiations from collapse. The most prominent of these efforts took place at the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg, where leaders of the world's most powerful economies called for a successful conclusion to the round, painting it as a “historic opportunity to generate economic growth, create potential for development, and raise living standards across the world."
The collapse of the Doha negotiations offers Africa a unique opportunity to review and reconsider the multilateral trading system as a whole, and to start with a new approach to a global trading system that will promote social and gender justice, women's empowerment and environmental sustainability. It also offers Africa some breathing space to reclaim the policy space that has been taken away in the process of negotiations.
Africa can expose the hyprocrisy of the lopsided trade in agriculture. Even if the United States had conceded to the terms of the WTO Director General's compromise on cutting its domestic support, this would still have left it with a massive US$20 billion worth of allowable subsidies. Even if the European Union had agreed to phase out its export subsidies, this would still have left it with 55 billion euros in other forms of export support. In return for such minimal concessions, the US, and EU, and other developed countries like Japan wanted radically reduced tariffs for their agricultural exports in Africa and developing country markets.
If these talks had been brought to a conclusion on such lopsided terms, it would result in African countries slashing farm tariffs while preventing them from maintaining food security. This is a recipe for massive expanded hunger and threatens to further impoverish millions of Africans.
The current deadlock was caused by developed countries, mainly the US, who were not willing or able to come up with steeper cuts in farm subsides. The collapse of the Doha negotiations creates a momentum for Africa to review the past negotiations and analyse the flaws in the WTO system in its entirety. The current neoliberal approach to the multilateral trading system subordinates the needs of African women and men to corporate-driven interests.
The bias of the Doha negotiations serves the private interests of the biggest corporations instead of benefiting the majority of Africa's people. Recent World Bank [1] and other studies such as that from the Carnegie Endowment Centre [2] highlight the fact that the current trade liberalisation agenda is not working for the majority of women and men, particularly those living in impoverished African countries, and that especially women “tend to be among the most vulnerable to adverse impacts” [3].
Trade can be a medium of development, but trade liberalisation is not a panacea to development, poverty eradication and gender equality. The time has come for Africa to take leadership and start with a new approach to a multilateral trading systems that will genuinely promote equitable, gender just and sustainable societies that benefit all women and men.
For this, international trade policy must be constrained and bound by existing international agreements that promote human rights and women's rights, ecological sustainability and human dignity and must aim to end poverty and promote well-being.
Trade policies can no longer be dictated by the interests of big corporations. Any further WTO negotiations should not undermine governments' commitments to implement domestic Bills or Rights and United Nations Conventions.
* Mohau Pheko is coordinator of the Gender and Trade Network. For Further Information: Write to: [email][email protected]
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Notes:
[1] A series of devastating reports on the potential outcomes of the Doha Round were published by the World Bank, the UN, and several think tanks including "Agricultural Trade Reform and the Doha Development Agenda", Kym Anderson and Will Martin et. al. World Bank Report, Nov.1, 2005
[2]"Winners and Losers: Impact of the Doha Round on Developing Countries", Sandra Polaski, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC, 2006
[3] "Global Overview Trade Sustainability Assessment of the Doha Development Agenda" from the EU, final draft report
Trade, trade and more trade: That’s the winning formulae for a fulfilled life. But what does this mean for women in the East Africa region? How are their interests reflected in trading activities? Salma Maoulidi investigates.
Trade signifies an assortment of economic activities and transactions. Trade, for many in the Global South struggling to improve their economic status, is the new salvation. It is the magic equation to economic prosperity - do more of it and your Gross Domestic Product (GDP) goes up, winning you points in economic performance.
But like all prevailing economic formulas there is a catch: for any meaningful economic gains to be registered under the present trade regime, external trading must outweigh internal trading. In practical terms this means economies import more at the expense of local production, the latter becoming more prohibitive and less competitive on account of higher production and transaction costs. Conversely, countries fetch lower returns on exports following the devaluation of local currencies, making then too weak to trade competitively on the world market; and also because goods produced locally continue to have the inferior status of “raw materials” or unprocessed goods and are of a lesser value compared to processed goods.
Why sex is a factor in the trade equation
In simple terms, this forms the basic functioning of the current trade regime. Underneath this simplicity, however, lies a complex set of relationships that fundamentally influence the terms and players in trade deals, including women. Universally the world of business is seen to be off limits to women. Just as dominant religious and cultural ideologies persistently deny women proprietary rights, the business establishment has followed suit, recognizing more readily women’s role as producers, and as consumers, but not as owners and managers of productive enterprise.
Political independence has had minimal impact on the national and global economic profile in terms of wealth distribution. During colonial times in East Africa, the trading class was composed mainly of Indians and a few Arabs, who owned the local retail and wholesale shops. The main economic activities were, however, controlled by the settler farmer and colonial administration, mostly Europeans. As corporations take over economic activities, trade monopoly is no longer solely defined by race and ethnicity. Thus the local Indian or Arab retailer in East Africa is being replaced by the Chinese retailer/wholesaler; while an expert labour force from India and other parts of South East Asia take over industries and the service sector. A few indigenous entrepreneurs claim a stake in local and regional business, but for the most part Africans form the bulk of the unskilled labour force and remain the primary consumers.
The sex composition in the business world has remained unchanged, with women registering little success in penetrating global, regional and local markets. Women in trade and economic bodies are still under-represented. In Tanzania, for example, women are underrepresented in virtually all business chambers. The local bourse has very few women traders as do local industries. Regional Trade Agreements offer business opportunities beyond national boundaries but are, for the most part, not integrative of the needs of women. Trade frameworks like NEPAD or the East African Common Markets, while seemingly progressive, are rendered ineffective by constitutional frameworks that preserve gender inequalities at national levels. In many respects, therefore, women remain objects of sale, convenient conduits for furthering materialist aims and gains. They are yet to become the subject of trade regimes and investments.
The miracle of women friendly economic programmes
In view of the persistent exclusion of women in economic enterprise and the widespread belief that economic empowerment is critical towards raising the status of women, some quarters, either pioneering individuals or development organizations, have tried to redress the imbalance of players in economic enterprise. Many implement programmes aimed at the economic upliftment of women, programmes that vary minimally in approach in that they have micro-lending or micro-credit as the basis for women’s economic empowerment.
The theory of women and economic upliftment is, however, flawed as it does not see the woman as an independent economic investor or dealer. Indeed, whereas the imperialist business model focuses on accumulation in order to achieve profit maximization through serious capital injection, prevailing notions of women and entrepreneurship limit women’s economic engagement to the micro, the small business happening outside the margins of real business.
Essentially, the very concept of micro credit is restrictive. Other than suggesting that it is insignificant, and therefore of minimal consequence, in so far as volume and risk is concerned, it does not view women as serious accumulators of capital. Rather, the concern is to give women enough to help them and their families survive. Such an outlook has affected how women engage in business, their overwhelming motivation being aiding their families, not making serious money.
Indeed, women plough back most of the earnings and profits they get from productive activities into their families instead of expanding or diversifying their businesses (a fact a number of agencies have banked on to introduce or intensify micro-credit programmes targeting women). Because women’s economic activity is mainly concerned with improving the household and family welfare it is not perceived as a serious trade venture. Perhaps if women did not assume the greater burden of caring for the household, they would dare trade for profit as some younger unattached women do. They would vie to make money for the sake of making money, and not just for survival.
The terms of engagement under which most micro lending schemes operate are also limiting in that they require women to organize in collectives - in fives or tens - to qualify for lending or credit schemes. Indubitably, it proves more profitable for lending institutions to lend money to communities of women where they can maximize their turnover irrespective of whether women are making any money from the loans: continuous recruitment and policing of group members ensure high return rates. Hence, with very little investments women become effective mediums of cash generation and multiplication.
Women as objects or subjects of trade
In many respects, therefore, women are becoming the objects of trade. Businesses target women using both traditional as well as modern techniques. Economic liberalization has seen an influx of luxury items in Tanzania, the most significant being cosmetics. Images of the modern woman championed by the media, result in the dumping of cheap beauty products such as whitening creams, the health dimension of which is yet to be assessed. The promoters and chief distributors are men, while women are the willing or beleaguered consumers. Similarly, the home, the bastion of womanhood, remains the most effective sales point, luring women with the possibilities of stocking up on the newest and cheapest home gadgets on the market.
This is not to say that women are sitting idly by, oblivious to emerging economic opportunities under traditional and new trade regimes. Women may have been excluded from active trade but they have never shied away from trade. Indeed, in a number of African countries women are revered for their trading skills. For example, food and textile markets in West Africa are dominated by women. It is now customary, even in conservative areas, to see women traders - women running shops and bars in urban and provincial centres; women fish vendors in coastal areas and the Great Lakes areas and Zanzibar; women trading in foodstuffs and cereals in Manyara and Mbeya; women hawking goods in Moshi and Arusha; and women transporters in Tanga and Dar es Salaam. There is also an increase of women participating in national and international trade fairs, many sponsoring their own participation. Increasingly women are trying to build a niche for themselves in fields previously dominated by men.
Women make up a significant percentage of the 85% of Tanzanians engaged in agriculture, the mainstay of the economy. Also they form a sizeable percentage of the self-employed population engaged in the informal sector. Because women’s economic engagement is confined to the reproductive sector - in food production or preparation, hospitality, child caring, education, beauty and hygiene, and handicrafts - areas that affirm a woman’s sexual and reproductive role, they remain excluded from more lucrative productive enterprises like large-scale farming, horticulture or industry.
Even among the fastest growing sectors of the Tanzanian economy, like mining, women are under performing. Whereas there is an association of women miners representing the interest of a sizeable population of women in mines, few are miners or dealers in gemstones or in industries associated with mining. The bulk of the female population working in mines sells food or provides sex services. Women in the tourist industry fare no better. Men dominate the most lucrative services in the sector as tour and taxi operators, travel agencies, hotel owners and managers. Women assume low raking service jobs such as telephone operators, waitresses, chambermaids, cleaners, travel agent sales persons, and flight attendants. As is the case of women in the food industry, women in the tourist industry are pushed to prostitution to supplement meager incomes.
Economic success but at what price for women?
Increasing insecurity in their personal lives may make women reluctant participants in commerce. Micro credit programmes are replete with reports of husbands who appropriate loans or earnings, exacerbating levels of poverty among women. Similarly, little attention has been paid to the great physical risk women face on account of their economic success. Necessarily, economic success does not shield women from the threat of violence. A number of women experience acts of aggression on account of their business success. A case in point involves a popular female fish trader in Arusha market, Mama Terry, who was recently robbed in her home. A close male relative jealous of her business success paid the gangsters to “fix her”. Thankfully, when they attacked she had a sizeable amount of cash, in her possession. Distracted by the loot, the thugs left without harming her. Other women are not so lucky, falling victims to both sexual and physical violence after being gang robbed.
Clearly, the terms under which women can engage in productive economic activity should not surpass social expectation. Otherwise relatives and society at large reserve the right to apply some form of sanction to neutralize a woman’s economic mobility.
It is common for youth traders, frustrated by severe economic alienation, to physically and verbally attack women they perceive as successful. They feel such women “undermine their chances” to make it in a competitive business environment.
Sadly, models of “women of substance” in trade and business continue to be scarce, even among female business graduates. Interestingly, women with business education end up teaching or overseeing less fortunate women in micro-credit and lending programmes. Few actually venture into business. Moreover, instead of being at the forefront of an emancipatory trade and economic agenda, business professionals do very little to emancipate themselves and other women from economic bondage. Rather, they serve the dominant trade framework, becoming brokers for financial interest, urging on poor and less educated women to take on loans and subscribe to economic models that keep them on a leash of economic dependency and exploitation.
A few business savvy women serve as self-appointed advocates for women’s economic justice. They exercise vigilance over global processes that dictate the terms of trade for men and women in the global south. Nevertheless, they communicate via language and process far removed from the realities of women they represent: Their discourse is too technical, aimed at policy makers and academics. Whereas these women would have provided the link between professionalism and creativity in local enterprise, or with local governments, their oppositional stance serves to alienate women further from entrepreneurship, seeing it as too complex and mystical a venture.
Ultimately, women continue to miss out on role models in the business world. They miss being groomed by women with a conceptual and practical understanding of the system. They remain confused and intimidated by the jargon and procedures that restricts their spontaneity to venture and risk. They remain ignorant of terms and processes they can take advantage of because there is little interest all round to acquaint and translate these to women. As long as women’s induction to trade in the region remains microscopic, microminimized and micromanaged they will remain at the margins of trading blocks, earning just enough for their survival and that of their families. How then can such a trade development formula realistically contribute to women’s economic empowerment?
* Salma Maoulidi, is the Executive Director of Sahiba's Sisters Foundation, a women’s development network in Tanzania whose mission is to build women’s leadership and organizational capacity.
* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Further reading
- Society for International Development, The State of East Africa Report 2006- Trends, Tensions and Contradictions: the Leadership Challenge, 2006
- Khadija Mohammed Hijja, Women and Tourism in Zanzibar, 2005(unpublished)