WUNRN
‘Africa
Rising: Promise or Challenge for Gender Equality?’
Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era
(DAWN) together with the Network of Ethiopian Women’s Associations (NEWA)
organized a Public Forum on “Africa Rising: Promise or Challenge for gender
equality?” in Addis Ababa on Friday, May 29, 2015 at the Harmony Hotel.
The Forum included a panel discussion on the topic, as
well as the launch of DAWN’s new book, The Remaking of Social Contracts:
Feminists in a Fierce New World (Zed Publications, 2014) and a special
issue of the journal, Global Public Health, titled “Sexual and
Reproductive Health and Rights for the next decades: what’s been achieved? What
lies ahead?”. The special issue of the journal was published in early 2015.
DAWN’s Board Chair, Dr Claire Slatter, and NEWA’s
Executive Director, Saba Gebremedhin, welcomed the audience and set the stage
by explaining why ‘Africa Rising’ is an important subject for feminists, their
allies, and policy makers to understand and debate. The panel discussants
were Professor Takyiwaa Manuh, Director, Division of Social Development Policy
(DSDP), UNECA; Ruth Nyambura of Agrarian Transformation(s) in Africa (ATA);
Nicole Bidegain Ponte, DAWN Executive Committee Member; and Professor Gita Sen,
DAWN General Coordinator. The panel was moderated by Zenebework Tadesse, DAWN
Board member.
The two African speakers provided a sharp critique of
the idea of “Africa Rising”, pointing to its origins in an increasingly
discredited neoliberal paradigm with its emphasis on trickle-down growth. The
hype around recent growth rates in Africa does not sufficiently address the implications
of a pattern of growth that is deeply dependent on the export of primary
commodities, that gives short shrift to job creation and investment in human
development, underplays rising inequality and social tensions and conflicts,
and pays lip service to gender equality and women’s human rights. As Professor
Manuh said, drawing on data thrown up by the ECA’s African Social Development
Index and the “Cost of Hunger” study, “Yes, Africa is rising, but for whom?”
Ruth Nyambura’s presentation focused particularly on
the challenges to food security and the sustainability of smallholder
production, largely by women. These challenges are the result of current
policies that continue to allow land grabbing, and do not support the region’s
women farmers who are the main food producers. Ironically, in the name of
support for agricultural investment, policies such as those promoted by the G-8
supported New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa, have ended up
subsidizing investment in tractors that are rarely used by smallholders. She
highlighted the damage caused by other policies such as those that prevent
local farmers from saving their own seeds, and force them instead to become
dependent for seeds on large agro – multinationals such as Monsanto.
Nicole Bidegain’s reflections on the lessons learned
from recent development experiences in Latin America showed how a gender lens
can challenge given narratives, even progressive ones. While she agreed that
strong governmental interventions for poverty reduction and social policies had
reduced income poverty significantly, these advances have not been without
costs. Conditional cash transfers, while contributing to income poverty
reduction, have also tended to worsen women’s “time poverty” by increasing their
work burdens. There has been a renewed dependence on the exports of primary
commodities and extractive industries under a TINA (there is no alternative)
belief that it is the only way to fund social sector spending. And there seems
to be a race to the bottom on taxation, as governments vie with each other to
be attractive to investment. Thus, the recent Latin American experience may be
more mixed and should be studied more closely from a gender perspective.
Gita Sen drew three main lessons from Asian development
experiences, especially of the high economic growth countries. She pointed out
that the experiences show different mixes of linkages between economic growth,
inequality, human development, environmental sustainability, human rights and
social justice, especially gender equality and women’s human rights. The first
lesson is the great importance of balance in policies – between internal market
versus exports, secondary /tertiary versus primary sectors, agriculture versus
industry / services, SMEs versus large enterprises, and public versus private
sectors, if development is to be truly sustainable. While many of the high
growth Asian countries have also had high human development, there have also
been many gaps and policy limitations where inequality, environmental
sustainability, and human rights are concerned. These chickens, as she said,
usually come home to roost. The second lesson is, thus, that the policy gaps of
today almost always become the constraints of the next phase. And the third
critical lesson is that, because of gender inequality, oppression and
subordination, those policy gaps and constraints often hit girls and women
especially hard.
There was a rich discussion among the 60 or so
participants in the Forum, and a strong feeling that inter-regional events such
as this one are especially valuable in learning from each other’s experiences
and histories. The discussion also stressed the need for social mobilizing so
that dominant narratives can be effectively challenged and transformed.
The final part of the evening was a perceptive and thoughtful review by
Sehin Teferra, chair and co-founder of the Ethiopian feminist network,
Setaweet, of DAWN’s new book and the Special Issue of the journal, Global
Public Health, produced by DAWN.