Feminist Knowledge | Policy
Assement of the Gender
Orientation of NEPAD
by Sara Hlupekile Longwe
Prepared for presentation at the African Forum for Envisioning Africa to be held in Nairobi, Kenya, 26 - 29 April 2002; by Sara Hlupekile Longwe; Consultant on Gender and Development; Longwe Clarke and Associates Box 37090, Lusaka e-mail: sararoy@zamnet.zm
Contents
A Executive
Summary
A1 Introduction
A2 Method of Assessment
A3 Main Findings
A4 Recommendations for Improved Gender Orientation of NEPAD
1 Introduction
2 Theoretical Framework for the Evaluation
2.1 The Need for an Focus in a Gender Assessment
2.2 The Principles and Purpose of NEPAD
2.3 Recognising a Gender Issue
2.4 Analysing a Gender Issue
2.5 The Concept of Women's Empowerment
2.6 Framework for the Analysing the Internal Coherence of the
Planning Logic
3 Method and Evaluation Criteria
4 Gender Assessment Findings
5 An Overview of the Findings
5.1 The Overall Pattern of the Findings
5.2 An Interpretation of the Patriarchal Paradigm
6 Recommendations for the Overall Gender Orientation of NEPAD
7 Conclusion
8 References
A Executive
Summary
A1 Introduction
This paper looks at the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)
to assess its adequacy in recognizing and addressing gender issues.
Since NEPAD has a special
interest in programmes to create better conditions for development, in
terms of improved democratic process, good governance and human rights, the
paper takes a special interest in whether gender issues are addressed within
these
conditions for development.
This entails a special interest
in whether NEPAD proposes to end the various forms of structural gender discrimination,
especially where these are established in law, traditional practice and governments'
administrative practice. It also entails an interest in whether
NEPAD proposes measures to enable women's increased empowerment, especially
by better representation in decision making within parliaments, government and
the corporate sector.
Further than that, there is an interest in whether the entire programme proposed by NEPAD sufficiently follows the policy principles of gender equality set out in the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and whether it proposes to address those gender issue which are intrinsic within its area of interest, using strategies outlined in the 1995 African and Beijing Platforms of Action.
The method of analysis and assessment is to look at the coherence of the document in terms its treatment of gender issues, differentiating between:
* Internal coherence,
in terms of whether there are logical connections between the mention of gender
in different parts of the document, e.g. are there gender oriented goals which
properly follow and pursue earlier policy statements concerning the need to
address gender issues?
* External coherence, in terms of whether there are gender oriented goals
and objectives which take account of the participating government's international
commitments on women's rights, and on gender and development.
Here gender issues are defined as pervasive gender gaps arising from widespread and institutionalized discriminatory practices. Women's empowerment is interpreted as the process of women's collective action to remove discriminatory practices, and to gain gender equality in the control over the allocation of resources, and access to opportunities.
The assessment findings show that NEPAD is deeply and comprehensively gender blind, in both its internal and external coherence.
The description of the problem
area to be tackled by NEPAD does not mention any gender issue. Despite this,
the statement on the 'New Political Will' mentions a policy goal to promote
the role of women in social and economic development and assure women's
participation in political and economic life (para. 49). But this rather
faint policy goal does not translate into any commensurate programme goals.
Instead we find overall programme goals to promote the role of women in all
activities and to make progress towards gender equality and women's empowerment
by eliminating gender discrimination in primary and secondary school enrolment'
(para.68).
There is no justification given for choosing increased schooling as the only means towards achieving gender equality and women's empowerment. This would seem to be a curiously indirect approach, given NEPAD's claimed interest in goals to improve democracy, governance and human rights. But the programme objectives and activities in these areas show no interest whatsoever in addressing gender issues.
Worse than that, the later description of the NEPAD programme entirely forgets the earlier goal to close gender gaps in schools. The programme description on Bridging the Education Gap (para. 120-123) makes no mention of any objective or action concerned with closing gender gaps in school enrolment.
Therefore, NEPAD's near complete lack of interest in gender is overlaid with lack of internal coherence, where principles do not follow through into goals, and goals do not follow through into objectives. The subject of gender, small to begin with, soon fades away entirely.
In its little mention of gender issues, the document does not acknowledge the prevalence, or even the existence, of the many serious issues of structural and institutionalized gender discrimination. The unsatisfactory attempt to formulate a gender goal in the area of 'gender equality and women's empowerment' merely reveals the authors' implicit belief that women's subordinate position is due to their own inadequacies. So they recommend more education!
Since the proposed programme interventions almost entirely overlook the obligations arising from the above mentioned international agreements and commitments, it is also almost entirely lacking in its external coherence.
A4 Recommendations for Improved Gender Orientation of NEPAD
NEPAD needs complete revision if it is to recognise and address the gender issues which are intrinsic within the all the problems which need to be addressed in African development. This revision should have the following charateristics:
i. Introduction of proper planning logic in the treatment of gender issues, which should be properly followed and linked throughout the document, from their initial identification in the situation analysis, through to problem identification, policy statement, 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.
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.
iv. Utilisation of the Women's Convention as a guideline on policy principles, and the African and Beijing Platforms for Action as a guideline on goals and strategies, to guide the gender orientation of NEPAD.
v. Formation of an Advisory Committee to advise NEPAD on how to undertake gender oriented planning and implementation.
This paper provides an assessment of the adequacy of the gender orientation of The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). This assessment will therefore look at whether NEPAD sufficiently recognises important gender issues, and whether it proposes adequate developmental interventions for addressing such issues.
In looking at this overall question, we can distinguish between two forms of assessment:
i. Internal adequacy,
in terms of whether the proposed programme is internally consistent in its treatment
of gender issues, i.e. whether there are proper and adequate logical connections
in following a gender issue along the planning sequence from principles and
goals through to implementation activities;
ii. External adequacy, in terms of whether there are gender issues which
should have been recognised, but which have been overlooked, especially in terms
of whether there is sufficient commitment of following up the principles and
goals already agreed in international conventions and declarations.
It follows from these considerations
that the assessment needs to proceed from a clear definition of what is meant
by a gender issue, as well as what is meant by a logical planning sequence
for the coherent treatment of gender issues. Whereas there may be general
consensus on what constitutes a logical planning sequence, there is rather
less general agreement on what constitutes a gender issue. The paper therefore
begins with a section on Theoretical Framework to set out the
essential vocabulary and categories which will be used in this assessment. This
provides the basis for the Method and Assessment Criteria.
This theoretical framework
and explanation of method is explained in some detail in the hope that it can
be further used, by other analysts and planners, for the further identification
of gender issues which NEPAD has overlooked, and therefore for the gender
orientation of NEPAD.
The Findings are presented as a table, which systematically looks at each section of NEPAD in terms of the implicit planning sequence, with each section of the table providing an assessment of the Gender Component within the section, and how this section has contributed to the Internal and External Coherence of the gender element within the plan. Because of the lengthy and comprehensive nature of these findings, they are followed by a shorter section giving An Overview of the Findings.
On the basis of these findings, the paper moves to Recommendations for the Improved Gender Orientation of NEPAD, and makes its final Conclusion.
2 Theoretical Framework for the Evaluation
2.1
The Need for an Focus in a Gender Assessment
Recent attempts to provide a gender assessment of NEPAD have been based on lack
of explicit evaluation criteria [see recent reports from ALF and MATCH]. This
criticism has recognised that the document is largely gender blind, and make
a range of different types of
demand for the improved gender orientation of the document. In general terms,
these different types of demand may be summarised as belonging to the broad
categories identified below:
i. Gender orientation of
NEPAD involves consulting women's organizations and representatives, to identify
and incorporate all women's current concerns presently overlooked by NEPAD;
ii. The document should make clear gender differentiation of all the actors
and beneficiaries mentioned in NEPAD;
iii. Women need to be identified as a vulnerable group, for special developmental
focus;
iv. There should be clear provision for women's involvement in all of NEPAD
activities;
v. Women should be equally the beneficiaries of NEPAD programmes;
vi. NEPAD should recognise the gender characteristics of economic and social
development;
vii. NEPAD should address issues of women's marginalisation in economic, social
and political decision making;
viii. NEPAD should be concerned with implementing the commitments made in the
African (Dakar) and Beijing Platforms for Action of 1995.
Worthy as these demands
may seem on their face, the implications of some of above demands, for the revision
of the document, would be enormous. One can easily imagine the document becoming
ten times longer, and losing its focus on other issues. A major problem
underlying the above list is that the demands for action are not based on any
explicit definition or framework for the process of gender orientation.
There is also the danger
that the document would be blown even further out of clear focus as the experts
in all the other areas of concern (the environment, democracy, good governance,
peace, HIV/AIDS, etc.) make their critical demands for improvement of the
document. We must also remember that planning is properly about selection, and
choosing priorities and clear focus. Is the document supposed to faithfully
identify all the problems and issues in every area, and propose appropriate
developmental interventions to tackle every problem, according to all the conventions
and conference resolutions to which each government is party?
All this is not to say that NEPAD should not be better gender oriented. It is merely to recognise that we need to base our assessment and suggestions on:
i. An understanding of the
principles and limited purpose of NEPAD (even if these are not very explicit
in the document itself!), so that our proposals for improved gender orientation
are tailored to NEPAD purpose, and not to some wider or different purpose;
ii. A clear definition of the gender issues, or the different categories of
gender issue, which are of priority importance in the NEPAD context;
iii. An understanding of NEPAD as a logical sequence, or at least as an inter-related
sequence of parts, so that we can see how gender issues ought to fit into this
sequence.
The remainder of this section on the Theoretical Framework unpacks each of the above three problem areas.
2.2
The Principles and Purpose of NEPAD
The main principle and purpose of NEPAD divide into three main categories:
i. Firstly, to take African
control over developmental priorities, rather than to be a mere recipient of
Western funding for programmes determined by Western perceptions, judgements
and priorities; therefore to work in equal partnership with Western governments,
instead of under domination;
ii. Secondly, to set out strategies for improved governance, democracy, accountability,
and observance of human rights, (presumably partly as a means) to attract Western
partnership and donor funding;
iii. Thirdly, to set out the main sectoral priorities and strategies for economic
development.
Thus, although the document
constantly refers to itself as a programme, it is clear from the actual
text that it would be better referred to as a strategic plan. It is high
level, concerns the whole African continent, and is mainly concerned with setting
out and justifying
the overall principles, goals and strategies for future development partnership
between African and Western governments.
Obviously this broad and
high level scope does not lend itself to identifying every possible gender issue
which ought to be addressed, and every gender oriented strategy for implementing
programmes and projects. However, neither is it true that NEPAD's high level
of generality allows the document to always refer to 'people', when the 'people'
are actually women and men in very different developmental situations. Taking
the three 'purposes' listed above, which also include important principles,
we can see that each of them brings with them an important gender dimension:
| Broad NEPAD Purpose | Implicit Gender Dimension |
| To take African control
over developmental priorities, rather than to be a mere recipient of Western funding for programmes determined by Western perceptions, judgements and priorities; therefore to work in equal partnership with Western governments, instead of under domination; |
Women need to participate
equally in the identification of developmental priorities, especially to ensure that issues of gender discrimination and women's marginalisation are addressed in development programmes, and that African governments' international commitments on gender equality are included in developmental priorties; |
| To set out strategies
for improved governance, democracy, accountability, and observance of human rights, (presumably partly as a means) to attract Western partnership and donor funding; |
Women's severe under-representation
and disempowerment all levels of decision making, which is a severe subtraction from democracy, and limits women's means to change systems of institutionalised and legalised gender discrimination, which are an offence against their human rights; |
| To set out the main
sectoral priorities and strategies for economic development. |
Women want to see a
focus on addressing issues of gender inequality within sectoral programmes, and the identification of purposeful and effective strategies to address these gender issues. |
The above table gives us
a framework for raising the appropriate key gender questions when reading NEPAD.
However, in raising such questions we need to have a sharp eye in recognising
gender issues, focusing on the major gender issues, and a good
understanding of how gender issues need to be linked at every stage to the strategic
planning process.
2.3
Recognising a Gender Issue
It is useful to identify a spectrum of definitions in order to categorize gender
problems according to their level of severity. Here it is suggested that the
following list is useful:
Levels of Severity
of Gender Problems
General Development Needs
Women's Special Needs
Gender Concerns
Gender Inequality
Gender Issues
General Development Needs are here defined as those needs which affect women and men equally, so there is no sex or gender difference. This is the zero level for seriousness of gender problems. It is often claimed that such matters as the need for roads, transport, or water are general development needs. But given the severe gender differention and division of social and economic roles in African societies, it is doubtful whether any needs, with the possible exception of the need for air, can properly be put in the category of a general development need. Nonetheless, it may be said that some needs are more general than others, where gender differentiation and discrimination are less severe. For example, perhaps roads are more of a general need, by comparison with land. Access to land is an area where women have a greater need, being the majority amongst farmers and food producers, but at the same time an area where they are severely discriminated against.
Women' Special Needs are here defined as those needs that arise from biological or sex differences. Of course these may be serious problems in the general sense, but they are not in themselves gender problems. Obvious examples are the need for maternity hospitals, ante-natal care facilities, and so on. But most childcare facilities are not in this category, because women's childcare responsibilities arise mostly from the gender division of labour rather than biologically given roles. (Of course gender problems may arise out of women's special needs, for instance where male control of government budget leads to lack of funding for maternity hospitals).
Gender Concerns are
those needs which arise because of the gender division of labour. Therefore
examples of women's gender concerns arise from their more domestic location
and their concern with child care and food production and preparation. Typically,
too, women are more dependent on the natural environment, and with gathering
of food and medicines from natural vegetation or forests. For this reason, too,
women and men have a very different perspective on development problems,
as well as a different identification of problems that need to be addressed.
Gender Inequality
is a more severe type of gender problem, because here the gender concern is
also overlaid with gender inequality, typically because women have less access
to facilities, opportunities and resources. Because of this inequality in present
systems of
allocation, women have a greater need. Gender equality is here defined as a
gender concern which also brings with it inequality in allocations and opportunities.
A Gender Issue arises when people recognise that a particular instance of inequality is wrong, unacceptable and unjust. This realisation is more likely where the gender gap is large, and where women are aware of their democratic and human rights. (It needs hardly be said that in the very patriarchal states of Africa, most gender injustice is perpetrated against women, rather than the other way round.) Of course, from a purely moral standpoint, it might be said that gender inequality is always unjust, and therefore an issue. But at the same time, it is difficult in political practice to make an issue of gender inequality if there is not a wide perception that this inequality is unjust.
Here we may note that, since
NEPAD is concerned with high level prioritization and strategic planning, our
primary focus should be on those critical and pervasive gender
issues which are already well known on the African continent, and which are
already a focus of
attention for the women's movement. Furthermore, the need for action on such
issues is already implicit in the various human rights conventions and other
development agreements signed by the participating African governments which
are also party to NEPAD.
Further than that, the NEPAD
document's own priority goals in the areas of democracy, good governance and
human rights should provide the basis for highlighting and prioritising the
abuses against women's rights, which stands an obvious major obstacle to
such goals.
2.4
Analysing a Gender Issue
If our priority interest is to look at NEPAD's recognition and intentions on
priority gender issues (rather than all problems of gender concern and gender
inequality), then it is useful to further unpack the concept of a gender issue.
It is here suggested that we may
unpack the concept of a gender issue as having five component levels, indicating
the categories for an analysis of underlying causes:
Underlying Causes
of a Gender Issue
Gender Gap
Gender Discrimination
Patriarchal Control
Patriarchal Belief
Coercion
Gender Gap is the
observable (and often measurable) gap between women and men on some important
socio-economic indicator (e.g. ownership of property, access to land, enrolment
at school), which is seen to be unjust, and therefore presents the clear empirical
evidence of the existence of a gender issue.
Gender Discrimination is the different treatment which causes a gender gap. A gender gap is never accidental, but is caused by differential gender treatment. In a patriarchal society, this is almost always the different treatment given to girls and women that cuts them off from access to opportunities, facilities and resources. Such discriminatory treatment may be part of social custom, or may be entrenched in government administrative rules and regulations, and even in statutory law. Even when residing in religious practice or custom, these discriminatory practices may well have the status of law in many countries.
Patriarchal Control is the system of male monopoly or domination of decision making positions, at all levels of governance, which is used to maintain male dominance and gender discrimination (for the continued privilege of males).
Patriarchal Belief is the system of belief that serves to legitimise male domination and gender discrimination. Typically it relies on patriarchal interpretations of biblical/religous texts, beliefs in male biological superiority (sexism), entailing claims that the unequal gender division of rights and duties is either natural (biological), or God-given, or too difficult to change (claimed to be hopelessly and irretrievably embedded in culture!).
Coercion is the even
more ugly side of male domination, relying on violence against women to keep
them in their place. Such violence may be domestic, or institutionalised within
schools, police, army, etc. Where women's acceptance of patriarchal belief begins
to
waver, physical and sexual violence is the fall-back method of control and subjugation.
Setting out the elements of a gender issue in this way, it becomes more apparent how the attention to gender issues ought to be a central concern of NEPAD, and not merely some after-the-event exercise in making the document more 'gender sensitive'. Men's domination of the state decision making process (and women's near absence from it) is a clear abrogation of the democratic process, where each interest group is supposed to be proportionately or adequately represented in decisions on the system of governance, legislation, and the allocation of resources. But if women are discriminated against even within government, there is little prospect of their acting to end discrimination in the wider society.
2.5
The Concept of Women's Empowerment
If NEDAD is to take an interest in women's participation in decision making
within state governance, then clearly this involves women's increased empowerment,
which may be defined in large part as women's increased control over public
decision making. Such
empowerment is women's route to changing the practices and laws that discriminate
against them, and achieving an equitable gender division of labour and allocation
of resources.
Furthermore, when faced with male domination of patriarchal government, which serves primarily male interests, and therefore has a vested interest in the continued subordination of women, it would clearly be folly for women to expect male leaders to suddenly 'realise' the value of gender equality, and to 'give' women an equal share of the cake. Past experience already provides plenty of evidence that men do not 'give' power to women, it has to be taken. This process of taking increased power is the process of empowerment [Longwe, 1991].
If NEPAD is interested in women's increased occupation of political positions (as is claimed at Para. 49), then it follows that NEPAD's strategies should be concerned with strategies for women's empowerment. Here we make use of Sara Longwe's Women's Empowerment Framework, which identifies and defines the following levels of empowerment:
Level of Women's Empowerment
Welfare
Access
Conscientisation
Mobilisation
Control
Welfare is here defined
as the lowest level at which a development intervention may hope to close a
gender gap. By welfare we here mean an improvement in socio-economic status,
such as improved nutritional status, shelter, or income. But we are here talking
about
the sort of intervention where women are given these benefits, rather
than producing or acquiring such benefits for themselves. This is therefore
a zero level of empowerment, where women are the passive recipients of
benefits which are 'given' from on high.
Access is defined as the first level of empowerment, since women improve their own status, relative to men, by their own work and organisation arising from increased access to resources. For example, women farmers may improve their production and general welfare by increased access to water, to land, to the market, and to skills training. But this 'access level' is defined as one where women are 'given' increased access (perhaps by some project intervention from on high, which is beyond their control), and not by their own action to demand and acquire increased access.
Conscientisation
is defined as the process by which women realise that their lack of status and
welfare, relative to men, is not due to their own lack of ability, organisation
or effort. It involves the realisation that women's relative lack of
access to resources actually
arises from the discriminatory practices and rules which give priority access
and control to men. Conscientisation is therefore concerned with a collective
urge to action to remove one or more discriminatory practices that impede women's
access to resources.
Mobilisation means
women's collective action to analyse and identify the discriminatory practices
that stand in their way, and collective and strategic action to remove these
discriminatory practices.
Control is the level
that is reached when women have taken action so that there is gender equality
in decisions making over access to resources, so that women have achieve direct
control over their access to resources, and are no longer 'given' resources
merely at the
discretion of men, or by the whim of patriarchal authority.
Therefore these five levels are not really a linear progression, as written above, but rather circular: the achievement of women's increased control, leads into better access to resources, and therefore improved socio-economic status.
This concept of the empowerment process ought to be central to NEPAD development strategy if it is really interested in the goal of 'promoting the role of women in social and economic life by … assuring their political participation in political and economic life' (para. 49), and in 'promoting the role of women in all activities' (one of NEPAD's two Long Term Objectives, para. 67). One of NEPAD's seven goals is concerned with making 'progress towards gender equality and women's empowerment' (para. 68)
2.6
Framework for the Analysing the Internal Coherence of the Planning Logic
Having earlier categorized NEPAD as being essentially a large scale regional
development strategy, we here identify the essential elements of such as strategy.
These elements can then be used to consider the internal coherence of the strategic
plan in its
treatment of the gender element or interest within the plan.
Of course it is often the
case that development plans do not measure up very well to the sequence of planning
logic which is suggested below. If so, this is because the planning was not
adequate. Very often a government may pursue a particular development intervention
because of political expediency, or for sectional rather than national interest,
or simply because a donor agency has money available in a particular sector.
In such cases the 'plan' is really an after-the-event attempt to rationalize
a particular developmental intervention, and to justify it in terms of existing
policies, known priority problems, established developmental goals, and so on.
To the extent that the plan reveals internal contradictions or lack of logical
connections, the justification for the development plan is suspect.
A strategic development plan should typically present itself as a rational argument, pursued by logical connections along the following sequence:
Elements of a Strategic
Development Plan
Situation Analysis
Policy Imperatives
Problem Identification
Formulation of Goals
Identification of Appropriate Intervention Strategies
Implementation Strategies and Objectives
Programme and Project Identification
Programme Management
Situation Analysis
refers to the initial review of the situation in the area that is of interest
to the plan, particularly to mention the various problem situations which might
need to be addressed by the plan. Here, with NEPAD, we find mention of quite
different types of
problems: firstly to do with globalisation, and Africa's need to get a fair
share of the benefits from the process; secondly partnership with the West,
and the need to escape from the prevailing pattern of Western domination of
a 'rider and horse' type of partnership; thirdly, the catalogue of developmental
problems of African poverty and underdevelopment.
Policy Imperatives refer to those aspect of the policy environment which are relevant when deciding what to do about the given Situation. In terms of formal planning logic, no Situation can be said to present a Problem unless there are Policy Principles which dictate that aspects of the situation are unacceptable, and therefore present a Problem on which action must be taken to eliminate or alleviate the Problem. However, the relevant policy environment is commonly omitted from plans, presumably on the assumption that everybody knows what the policy principles are, or otherwise becausee some aspects or the situation are 'obviously' unacceptable, and are 'obviously' adopted as a problem.
Many African governments now have their own national gender policies which set out general principles, identify problems, and set out gender oriented goals. In addition to this, they are (mostly) the signatories to internal conventions and agreements, notably the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (which sets out the principles for gender equality of access and opportunity in all areas of human endeavour). All have assented to the 1995 Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action which may be summarised as setting out the very detailed and specific strategies to be used by governments and civil society in operationalising the principles of the Convention. Moreover, the international agreement on these strategies is older than 1995, since the 1995 Platforms are no more than a more detailed expression of the 1985 Forward Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women which were agreed at the Third World Conference for Women in Nairobi.
Problem Identification.
As already mentioned, in planning logic a problem only formally comes to light
when Policy Principles are set against the Situation Analysis. Despite this
formal logic, many problems are identified as 'obvious', and may indeed be so.
But the
'obvious' aspects of problem identification tend to be notably missing in the
area of gender. Whereas many ordinary problems are 'obvious' without recourse
to looking at the policy, gender issues tend to get overlooked, along with the
gender policy itself. Gender issues may be overlooked as being 'political' in
plans which take a technical or purely economic perspective. They may be overlooked
where there is the vocabulary is gender neutral, in terms of 'people', 'farmers',
'target group', 'beneficiaries', and so on, which provide an easy formula for
gender blind treatment of development issues. Most of all, gender issues are
likely to be overlooked by male planners who are definitely not interested in
recognizing or addressing issues of gender equality. With gender issues, it
may be necessary to wave the gender policy in planners' faces before the existence
of gender issues can be admitted. Despite the common lack of identification
of gender issues, it is usually very easy to give gender issues a specific and
precise identification in terms of the size of gender gaps, and the existence
of discriminatory practices.
Formulation of Goals
should follow naturally from problem identification, where a goal may be summarized
as an expressed intention to address a problem, perhaps with a statement of
intended quantified outcomes, to be achieved in a specified time. However, it
is
not uncommon for the transition from Problem to Goal to show a complete disappearance
of a gender issue. Or otherwise a problem originally identified as a problem
of women's lack of empowerment gives way to a goal which proposes intervention
at the level of 'welfare' or 'access'.
Identification of Appropriate
Intervention Strategies. The logic in moving from Goal to Intervention Strategy
is that the chosen intervention, in order to be effective, must tackle one or
more of the underlying causes of the given problem. But with poor planning,
the
intervention is merely considered to be a 'good thing to do', without any established
causal connection with the original problem. Very often implementation strategies
are not made clear or explicit within a strategic plan, but remain implicit
within the statement of goals.
Where a plan's gender orientation proceeds as far as gender oriented strategies,
it is often found that there is no clear logical, experiential or empirical
connection between the gender issues and the proposed intervention to address
it. Very often the systemic or structural aspects of gender discrimination are
forgotten, and interventions are aimed at increasing women's confidence, skills,
literacy, and so on, i.e. limited to increasing women's access to resources.
Implementation Strategies
are the methods which are chosen to actually implement the intervention strategy.
They are therefore the lower level strategies. For example, the goal of increasing
women's representation in parliament may be achieved by the broad
intervention strategy of affirmative action. This may be achieved by various
implementation strategies, such as reserved seats for women, or mandatory rules
for political parties on proportion of females amongst candidates, or providing
special material support for female candidates. A Strategic Plan should normally
end, at least in its substantive content, at the level of Implementation Strategies.
The remainder of planning, from Implementation Strategies onwards, is concerned
with the lower levels of action planning, programme and project planning.
Objectives are the expression of the more specific and more detailed intention of implementation purpose, especially in terms of activities and intended outcomes. Very often an implementation strategy is not properly identified or even justified, but may be deduced by its being implicit within a list of objectives.
Project Identification
(leading to Project Plans) entails the identification and planning of the
specific programmes and projects which will be drawn up to pursue the broad
goals and strategies formulated in the strategic plan. Here it may be noted
that it is normally a
complete waste of time to assess the appropriate and adequacy of programmes
and projects if these have been found to be pursuing goals and intervention
strategies that are known to be inappropriate or inadequate. This point is of
particular importance in the area of gender orientation, since it is unlikely
that projects are to be found identifying and addressing gender issues, when
such intention is not to be found in the strategic plan that guides the whole
programme.
The Management System
sets out the system of organization and management for implementation and supervision.
From a gender perspective, particularly important here is a system for ensuring
that gender oriented objectives are actually pursued, that there are
methods for monitoring progress on gender objectives, that women are represented
in management, and women amongst the target group, beneficiaries and affected
community are involved in the planning and management of implementation projects.
3 Method and Evaluation Criteria
The method of this assessment is to assess the coherence of NEPAD as a strategic plan, looking only at the coherence of its treatment of gender issues, and action to address these issues.
In looking at planning coherence, the assessment systematically makes use of the eight elements of a strategic plan presented at Section 2.6, above. These eight elements will form the basis of the main headings which will structure the assessment. The headings used in NEPAD will be here be arranged under these eight logical planning headings, because the sequence of argument and use of planning terminology used in NEPAD do not always conform to good planning logic nor conventional terminology.
In looking at the coherence
in the planning logic when treating gender issues, the assessment distinguishes
between the internal and external coherence of the plan. Internal coherence
is assessed in term of whether the NEPAD is properly connected, within itself,
in
its treatment of gender issues. External coherence is assessed in terms of whether
NEPAD is properly connected with those the goals and principles of gender equality
to which the participating governments are committed in international agreements.
Given NEPAD's central focus
on the 'Conditions for Sustainable Development' in terms of democracy, good
governance and human rights, there is a special focus in this assessment on
whether NEPAD sufficiently recognises the essential gender element within
these 'Conditions'.
In terms of evaluation criteria, therefore, we may say that NEPAD's treatment of gender issues would be adequate if it:
i. Incorporates within its
principles and goals all the relevant commitments on gender equality to which
the participating governments are already party.
ii. Reveals adequate logical connections between the identification of gender
oriented goals, and appropriate and effective interventions to address these
goals.
Therefore, using the theoretical
framework set out in Section 2, the above evaluation criteria are the basis
of the assessment findings presented in the next section.
However, this assessment is not intended to be comprehensive or exhaustive. All that is intended here is to focus on the main gender issues that ought to be important to NEPAD, and to identify the main omissions in recognizing or not intending to address these issues.
This paper has explained the theoretical framework, method and criteria in some detail because there is also an interest in in enabling others to apply this method for themselves, and come to their own judgement and conclusions, in their own areas of developmental expertise. In this way we may move towards an integrated gender component within all assessments of NEPAD, rather than the separate gender assessment provided by this present paper.
| Element of Plan | Gender Content in NEPAD | Internal Coherence | External Coherence |
| Situational Analysis |
I: Introduction II: Africa in Today's
World: Between The historical
improverishment of a Africa and the
global revolution |
In terms of the internal coherence of the document, how can NEPAD be proposing to address gender issues when none are mentioned in the Situational Analysis? But despite
this omission, we later find the gender oriented goal of proposing to
close gender gaps in school enrolments. |
Need for
mention of women's marginalisation, relative lack of access education, land, credit. (c. f. African Platform for Action, Section III) The mention of African culture as an important 'resource base' fails to acknowledge the negatives elements within culture which subordinate women, and legitimate their continued subordination. For women, custom and tradition is, in many ways, more of a problem than a resource. |
| Policy Imperatives |
III: The New Political
Will of African Leaders |
This gender-
oriented policy statement is clearly directed at gender issues which were
not mentioned in the earlier Situational Analysis. Therefore it is difficult to assess whether this policy statement is a adequate response to the problem situation. The reference to 'assuring women's participation in political life' is strangely disconnected from the earlier policy goal on 'promoting and protecting democracy'. Women's participation is not represented as essential to democracy, but merely as one of the means towards 'promoting the role of women in social and economic development'. |
There is
a failure to properly locate women's participation as an intrinsic part of democratic process (see African Platform, para. 103). This serves to compartmentalize democratization goals, separate from gender oriented goals. There is no mention of unequal power relations or the discrimination women face in entering politics. Instead the NEPAD policy statement interprets the problems in terms of 'reinforcing women's capacity', as if their lack of capacity is the underlying problem. |
| Problem Identification | There is no proper identification of problems in NEPAD, either in the area of gender or in any other area. After setting out Situational Analysis and Policy , the document proceeds straight to Goals. Perhaps the preliminary sections are supposed to serve as both Situational Analysis and Problem Identification. If so, there is no clear identification of problems to be addressed by NEPAD, nor prioritization of these problems. Problems are identified only by implication, in the subsequent Goals. | Since there
is no mention of gender issues in the Situation Analysis, there was no prospect
of selecting and prioritizing those gender issues which should be addressed,
given NEPAD's priority interests in the areas of peace, democracy, good
governance and human rights. Without such prioritization of gender issues, there is no logical basis for the subsequent formulation of gender oriented Goals. |
Part III of the African Platform for Action could have alerted the NEPAD authors to the established 'Critical Areas of Concern' for gender equality in Africa. NEPAD areas of interest are dealt with especially in the sections on Women's Involvement in the Peace Process, The Political Empowerment of Women, and Women's Legal and Human Rights. NEPAD priorities could have been selected from this ample and comprehensive 'shopping list' of critical gender issues. |
| Goals |
Sustainable Development
in the 21st Long- Term Objective Goals |
These goals
are addressing problems which were not mentioned earlier. These two goals
fall short of the earlier policy statement, itself inadequate, which mentioned
'facilitating women's access to credit' and 'assuring women's participation
in political and economic life'. Now the goal of 'progress towards gender equality and empowerment' is limited by prescribing the intervention strategy of eliminating gender disparities in school enrolments. As is discussed below, this is a limited and possibly irrelevant intervention strategy The 'Expected Outcomes' make no mention of intended targets to be achieved on the goal of reducing gaps in school enrolment |
Completely missing from the goals is any intention to increase women's representation in parliament, government and top decision making positions, despite clear commitments both in the African Platform (para. 105f) and the in the Beijing Platform (para. 182) which endorses the UN Economic and Social Council guideline of 30% women in top decision making positions. |
| Intervention Strategies: Conditions for Sustainable Development |
V. A Conditions for Sustainable Development: Peace and Security
Initiative Democracy and Political
Governance Initiative Economic and Corporate
Governance Initiative |
No gender
element in the strategy for improved Democracy and Political Governance,
despite the earlier NEPAD policy goal of 'assuring women's participation
in political and economic life'. There is a strategy (para 83) for 'promoting
participatory decision making' which does not mention any concern with,
or strategy for women's equal participation in decision making. Similarly no gender element in the Economic and Corporate Governance Initiative, despite the earlier NEPAD policy goal which concerned with 'promoting the role of women in social and economic development'. |
The Beijing Platform for Action, at para.190 and 192, lists nineteen alternative strategies which can be used to increase the proportion of women in decision making positions in politics and economic governance. One of these suggested strategies asks governments to 'Take positive action to build a critical mass of women leaders, executives and managers in strategic decision making positions. ' Another strategy is concerned with 'Taking measures, including … in electoral systems, that encourage political parties to integrate women in elective and non- elective public positions in the same proportion and at the same levels as men'. |
| Intervention Strategies: Sectoral Priorities |
In the SECTORAL
PRIORITY areas of Infrastructure, Human Resource Development, Capital
Flows and Market Access, the interest in gender has almost entirely disappeared.
The only exceptions are: Poverty Reduction (para 119) mentions an objective to 'establish a gender task force to ensure that the specific issues faced by poor women are addressed in poverty reduction strategies. Agriculture (para
132- 137) Most notably, the section on Bridging the Education Gap (para 120) says nothing about closing the gender gaps in school enrolment, despite the earlier announcement of this strategy which was attached to one of the major NEPAD Goals. |
The objective on 'special attention' to the reduction of poverty amongst women is not clearly a gender objective, since it falls sort of stating the intention to close the gender gap in poverty. Also, the earlier NEPAD goal on poverty (para 68) did not state any gender goal. Nor was there any policy statement on gender and poverty, nor any identification a gender related poverty issue in the Situational Analysis. The strategy of a 'gender task force' for poverty reduction is not connected to the rest of the document. Why do all other Intervention Strategies not have a gender task force? And where are the gender oriented goals and strategies which the gender task force are supposed to be implementing? Or is gender orientation seen as an aspect of only implementation, and not problem identification, policy and goals? The only NEPAD Goal which was gender oriented (para 68) provided an intervention strategy for closing gender gaps in school environment. But when we look under the Education strategies (para 120- 125) we find that this intervention strategy has gone missing - there are no objectives nor activities with which to implement the strategy. |
The Beijing Platform for Action provides comprehensive advice on gender oriented strategies for all of NEPAD's areas of sectoral interest. Here are some examples of strategies which NEPAD might have taken on board: Information Technology: Excerpts from Beijing
Platform: Health Agriculture |
| Implementation Strategies: Mobilising Resources | Market Access Initiative (para 157) Has an objective 'to improve the productivity of farmers, with particular attention to … women farmers'. (Evaluator's Comment: The tagging on of phrases of the type 'especially women' is an example of the lowest level of lip- service to gender policy, and represents the most minimal level of gender orientation.) |
For overall coherence, an objective on improving the productivity of women farmers should have appeared in the Agriculture section, and under Intervention Strategies. This wrong placement may arise from a larger failure to properly distinguish between access to resources for NEPAD interventions, and the intended increased access to resources arising from NEPAD interventions. |
There are some strategies here which are gender blind, even though they scream out for a gender component. For example, the strategy 'to increase the security of water supply for agriculture' (para 157) should have taken notice that women need the water most, as the main agricultural producers. Here it would have been useful to refer to the Beijing suggestions on the involvement of women in environmental decisions at all levels (Beijing Platform, para 253) |
| Implementation Strategies: New Global Partnership | From this point on in NEPAD, the gender content completely disappears, notwithstanding the continuing implications of the fairly strong gender policy goal at Para. 49, and the gender issues which are implicit within all of the problems to be addressed. | The interest in gender has now disappeared, finally completing the pattern of 'fade away', until the interest in gender has reached a complete zero. |
In this area of new global partnership, NEPAD is mostly concerned with establishing an equal partnership with the West, and African direction and control of development programmes. But this line of thinking has not extended into any adequate identification of the comparative advantages of each side, and how they can be strategically combined for well focused, effective and rapid developmental outcomes. (For instance on how the Western advantage in technology and the African advantage of natural resources can combine to produce African development, and not merely increased Western economic development.) Such considerations of comparative advantage may be particularly fruitful in the area of increasing gender equality and women's empowerment, where the women's movement in the West has experienced considerable success, for instance in pushing governments in the direction of abolishing discriminatory legislation, and instead introducing equal opportunity legislation. However, the long list of roles for 'development countries and multilateral institutions' (para 188) is purely technical and economic, and is notably lacking in any Western role for assistance in the area of democratization, good governance, human rights and gender equality. If we compare Western countries versus Africa interest in their capacity in the area of gender and development, the pattern is that it is Western governments and international development agencies which have been pushing for gender oriented development, whereas African governments - in the main - have been resisting. NEPAD's inadequate interest in gender issues may also be taken as symptomatic of African's governments' reluctance to take action on gender issues. If so, this could form a major aspect of incoherence in future global partnerships, being evidence of serious lack of political will in the area of democracy and good governance, and a therefore a serious obstacle to attracting Western funding. |
| Project Identification |
The assessment here is based on the brief summary and examples at para. 189- 200 of NEPAD, and not on the further detailed list of projects at www.mapstrategy.com Here the summary of projects makes absolutely no mention of gender issues, or even women's issues, or even any differentiation between women and men. There is an identification of programmes to be 'fast-tracked' (para 190): Communicable Diseases
(AIDS, Malaria, TB) Apart from the intention to improve access to credit by women farmers (para 158), there is nothing to indicate any intention to address gender issues in the above listed programme areas. |
The programme areas listed for 'fast track' actually cast doubt on the meaning and validity of the little gender interest seen earlier in the NEPAD document. The area of gender equality in schooling, a main NEPAD goal, is not included in the priority 'fast- track' area. None of the 'Conditions for Development' areas of improved democracy and good governance are included in the 'fast- track' areas. But it is particularly in these areas that women might hope for action on legalized and institutionalized forms of gender discrimination. |
It is clear that NEPAD goes to some length to explain that African governments have the 'political will' to move towards more democratic and accountable forms of government. It is this promise which forms the basis for NEPAD's claim for African planning and management of development programmes, and for Western governments to assist. This claim is generally undermined by the omission of any good governance programmes from the priority projects. It is particularly undermined by the virtual disappearance of any interest in gender equality and women's empowerment. |
| Programme Planning and Management |
It is clear from what is said under the NEPAD section on management (para 201- 203), as well as from various other statements in the document, that NEPAD is to be both planned and managed by African heads of state. In other words, planning
and management is in the hands of the heads of governments which are all
very patriarchal, and where the heads of government are all male. The
lack of gender content in NEPAD is itself clear testimony to their near
complete ignorance of the |
It is not
clear what basis there is for the claim that NEPAD is 'owned by the African
peoples' (para 51). This claim is not consistent with the actual text. The
voice of African women is certainly not reflected in NEPAD. African women's
demand for action on gender issues, both structural and material, is well set out in the African and Beijing Platforms for Action, to which African governments have assented. |
Perhaps
the main overall purpose of NEPAD is to put African development planning
into African hands. But if this puts development planning into the hands
of a male monopoly of patriarchs who refuse to take action on gender issues,
then African women might actually be better off with present Western control
of African development. At least Western governments are known to have stronger policies and commitment on democracy and gender equality. |
5.1
The Overall Pattern of the Findings
The above findings on the gender assessment are quite hard to come by, because
they involve the rather difficult process of looking for what is not there.
For 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 wereach project objectives. [A discussion of the pervasive tendency to of gender policies to 'fade-away' may be found in Longwe, 1995]
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.
5.2
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.
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! [A discussion of whether schools
can contribute to the process of women's empowerment may be found in Longwe,
1997.]
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.
6 Recommendations for the Overall Gender Orientation of NEPAD
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.
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.
ALF (Africa Leadership Forum), 2002, Preliminary Report of the Regional Conference on African Women and NEPAD, 3-5 February 2002, ALF and UNESCO, Ota (Nigeria) and Paris.
Longwe, Sara, 1991, Gender Awareness, The Missing Element in the Third World Developmen Project, in Tina Wallace and Candida March (Eds), Changing Perceptions: Writings on Gender and Development, Oxfam, Oxford.
Longwe, Sara, 1991, The Evaporation of Policies for Women's Advancement in Noeleen Heyzer et al, (Eds), A Commitment to the Worlds Women, UNIFEM, New York.
Longwe, Sara, 1997, Education for Women's Empowerment or Schooling for Women's Subordination? In Carolyn Medel-Anonuevu (Ed), Negotiation and Creating Spaces of Power, UNESCO Institute for Education, Hamburg.
MATCH International Centre, 2002, Review of the NEPAD Document, January 2002, MATCH, Ottowa; also http://www.web.ca/~matchint.
OAU (Organisation for African Unity), 2001, The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), OAU, Addis Ababa.
United Nations, 1995, Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, UN, New York.
Economic Commission for
Africa (ECA), 1995, African Platform for Action, ECA, Addis Ababa.
* * Reprinted with permission from the Heinrich Boll Foundation, Regional Office, East and Horn of Africa * *