Sara Hlupekile Longwe, Longwe Clarke and Associates, Lusaka

Assessment of the Gender Orientation of Nepad

Summary of paper presented at the African Forum for Envisioning Africa,
Nairobi, Kenya, 26-29 April 2002

Summary of gender assessment findings

The findings of the Nepad gender assessment are quite hard to come by,
because they involve the rather difficult process of looking for what is not
there. Despite the many critical and pervasive gender issues which haunt
Africa, and the international commitments to address these issue, Nepad is
severely and almost completely gender blind. Whereas assessment of a
development plan should more usually entail criticizing the
inappropriateness or inadequacy or ineffectiveness of what is in the plan,
in this case we are almost entirely looking for what is missing.
Overall, we can see that Nepad is severely inadequate in both recognizing
gender issues, and in expressing any intention to address gender issues or
promote the process of women's empowerment. Despite a declared interest in a
major policy goal of 'promoting and protecting democracy and human rights'
and in 'developing clear standards of ? participatory government' (para 49),
Nepad has failed to properly recognise the imperatives for gender equality
and empowerment that must intrinsically lie within this goal.
Instead the main policy goal of 'assuring [women's] participation in the
political and economic life of African countries' (para 49) is put
separately from the policy goal on democracy and human rights, and is
presented as a means towards 'promoting the role of women in social and
economic development'.
Thus goals of gender equality are kept separate from the area of democracy
and governance, and instead located it in the area of social and economic
development. It might be thought that this apparent separation at the policy
level might be a mere conceptual lapse, or not intended, or that too much
should not be being read into this separation. But the whole Nepad document
is faithful to this separation. The subsequent text reveals absolutely no
gender component in the areas of "Democracy and Political Governance" or
"Economic and Corporate Governance." Despite the hopeful policy goal that
mentions 'assuring [women's] participation in ? political and economic life'
, there is no follow-through to the actual programme goals and activities by
which such a policy goal might be achieved.
On the contrary, the little attention given to gender oriented objectives
is in the area of gender equality in access to schooling and access to
credit. But it is precisely in the areas democracy, governance and human
rights where action needs to be taken to end the legalized and
bureaucratized system of structural gender equality, so that women may
achieve equality of opportunity according the governments' commitments under
the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women.
Nonetheless, the rather weak and compartmentalized policy goal of assuring
women's participation in political and economic life could have led into
some meaningful gender orientation of the strategic plan. The failure to
actually pursue this policy goal reveals another part of the overall
pattern, already mentioned in Section 4 of this assessment, that Nepad
reveals a fade-away on gender issues. The original policy intention is
watered down when its implications reach a programme goal, and the intention
has disappeared entirely by the time we reach project objectives. Very often
the authors of planning documents are sufficiently aware of gender
vocabulary and concepts, and the need to impress the donors on gender
orientation. Therefore they are able to employ elaborate lip-service to
persuade gullible readers that they have intentions to address gender
issues, and to hide their reluctance in this area. But in this is not the
case with Nepad, whose authors would seem to be genuinely, deeply and
comprehensively ignorant of all matters relating to gender and development.

An interpretation of the patriarchal paradigm

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 no
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, which 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..30 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 same policy goal
referred to above, which is concerned with 'promoting the role of women ?by
reinforcing their capacity.?' (emphasis added). Both of the underlined
phrases are instructive 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.

Recommendations

It follows from the above analysis that Nepad needs complete revision if it
is to recognise and address the gender issues that are intrinsic within all
African development problems.
This revision should have the following characteristics:
i. Introduction of proper planning logic in the treatment of gender issues,
which are properly followed throughout the document from their initial
identification in the situation analysis, through to policy statement,
problem identification, programme goals, objectives and activities.
ii. Within the programme on 'Conditions for Sustainable Development',
incorporation of a primary focus on ending all forms of legalized gender
discrimination within statutory law, customary law and administrative
practice, as an essential component in the programme for improved democracy,
good governance and human rights.
iii. Mainstreaming of gender issues within the sectoral priorities, to
recognise and address all the important gender issues that are intrinsic
within the areas of endeavour currently suggested, in order to provide
gender equality of opportunity in access to all resources and facilities.
Given the difficulty of a consultation process to establish a widespread
African women's consensus on the priority gender issues to be addressed
within Nepad, it is suggested that the 1995 Dakar and Beijing Platforms for
Action should be used as the basis for identifying the gender issues which
need to be addressed, and the appropriate strategies for doing so. These
documents are fairly recent, the same gender issues are still with us, and
the documents are themselves the result of a lengthy and comprehensive
consultation process amongst African women from all walks of life. The Dakar
document is the best source of information on African women's identification
of the range of gender issues that they would like to see addressed, whereas
the Beijing document provides the more comprehensive 'shopping list' of
alternative strategies for addressing any particular gender issues.
It is further recommended that Nepad should set up a small Advisory
Committee of women experienced in both gender issues and development
planning, to advise on the re-writing of Nepad to achieve a gender
orientation that is commensurate with the international commitments of the
participating countries.

Conclusion

Nepad is deeply and comprehensively gender blind. It fails almost completely
to recognise or address the major issues of gender inequality and
discrimination, and the oppression of women that lie hidden and
unacknowledged within Nepad goals and objectives, and which must be revealed
and addressed if the participating governments are to meet is commitments
under various international agreements and conventions.
There is also some internal inconstancy within Nepad's treatment of gender
issues, in that the limited intention to address particular gender issues at
the policy level is not sufficiently followed through into programme goals
and objectives, or into project activities. The little interest in gender
gets lost in between policy statement and intended actions.
Therefore it is recommended that a Gender Advisory Committee be formed to
assist Nepad planners in writing a gender oriented document. This should
reflect intentions on gender equality and women's empowerment, with proper
planning logic and coherence. Policy statements on gender should reflect
international commitments. Gender issues recognised in the situation
analysis should be the followed through into problem identification and
prioritization, giving way to the identification of clear goals, objectives
and project activities designed to appropriately and effectively address
these issues.
Gender orientation is particularly important in the area of Nepad
interventions concerned with improved democracy, governance and human
rights. Action in this area is desperately needed to address the many grave
issues of structural gender discrimination that are serious and pervasive
across Africa.

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