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Africa's Women Forum in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire

"Improving the Status of Women in Africa; Challenges for the Future"

Executive Summary

The 2nd Africa Women's Forum convened in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire from the 23rd to the 24th August, 1999 under the theme "Improving the Status of Women in Africa; Challenges for the Future". The main focus of the meeting was the Index on the Status of Women in Africa, an initiative of the Africa Leadership Forum designed to measure women's participation in the economic and political spheres in Africa, especially with respects to leadership positions. This was part of the recommendation was suggested by the 1997 ninth Annual Meeting of African Leaders held 1997 Accra, Ghana.

This meeting which a was hosted by the African Development Bank was convened by H.E Mrs. Graca Machel while the Opening ceremony was presided by H.E Mrs. Anne-Therese Ndong Jatta, Secretary of State of the Department of Education, The Gambia. In her Opening Statement, she express her grief at the unending procrastination and hesitant attitudes in both men and women with regards to the realisation of the goal of gender equality in leadership, even as she described women's integration as a critical factor of development for the next millennium an arrangement that cannot be compromised. Mrs. Jatta also shared some insights , on developments in the area of women and leadership in her country. In attendance at the meeting was also H.E Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo, Former Prime Minister of Portugal, who gave a brilliant Keynote Address to the tumultuous gathering of over 90 participants which included women leaders from various women networks in Africa, ministers and parliamentarians, politicians and professional women. In addition also Representatives of some international and intergovernmental agencies notably the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), The African Development Bank, (ADB), The United Nations Development Fund For Women (UNIFEM), Africa Recovery, the Joint Centre for Political and Economic Studies, Global Coalition for Africa (GCA), the International Commission of Jurists, and the Centre for Strategic Initiative were also not left out.

The major objectives of the meeting were;

· To identify strategies that might be established for broadening the support base for the Index on the Status of women in Africa, as a negotiation platform towards building a critical mass of women leaders in Africa, and for the advancement of the status of women in general;

· To identify strategies that might be used to further broaden and the Index on the Status of Women in Africa ;

· To identify possible modalities and strategies for effectively utilising the Index on the Status of Women in Africa as a strong negotiating platform for women and civil society organisations in Africa.

THE INDEX ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN AFRICA

The Index on the Status of women in Africa was submitted to the Meeting as presented by the Consultants, Sara Longwe and Roy Clarke, a comprehensive review was made by Mrs. Ruth Odhiambo Ochieng, Director, Isis-WICCE, Uganda.

1. The Index was conceived using existing baseline data as the framework for progressive improvement then, identify and distinguish between two composite indicators, for the purpose of establishing women's level of empowerment in Africa. The Women's Self-Reliance Index (WSI) is defined as women's individual capacity to advance, in terms of their education, training, and access to resources, a function of indicators such as level of education, share of earned income, proportion of women in industry, skills training, ownership of land and capital, and access to credit. According to its findings women's occupation of self-reliance positions may be accommodated within the existing patriarchal system of male privilege, and male control over the gender division of labour, and the allocation of resources, without a clear impact on women's collective empowerment.

2. Women's Empowerment Index (WEI) is defined as women's actual exercise of power over the allocation of resources and ability to control public policy, a function of equally weighted indicators on women's occupation of decision making positions in the public domain, such as seats in parliament, and top management positions. The Index reiterates that the strength of women's occupation of leadership positions lies in its potential to transform society, in the direction of equal rights for women. Empowerment extends beyond bringing women into existing structures of public governance as they are, to effectively transforming them, especially at decision-making levels, to be inclusive of just and humane forces that can guard against the perpetration of any kind of oppression or inequality on the society.

3. African countries are ranked in the Index in the order of their score on the WEI. Correlations between the two indices and between selected indicators are also made. However, the Index pointed out that a common yardstick for benchmarks and targets cannot be used for all governments, owning to variations in the 'baseline' starting points of different countries, and in other interacting obstacles to progress from one country to another. These variations are more clearly perceived after looking at the values for WSI and WEI for different African countries. A brief statistical comparison of the Africa region with other regions of the world, looking at women's level of representation in decision making positions confirms similarities in global trends in the status of women in leadership. It was observed that the African inter-country comparisons between the Women's Self-Reliance Index (WSI) and the Women's Empowerment Index (WEI) presented did not reveal any clear pattern of correlation between the WSI and the WEI. Some countries with high WSI were found to have high WEI while , others with high WSI have low WEI.

4. In contrast to the occupation of self reliance positions, women's occupation of leadership positions, it was noted, carries with it the key transformatory potential, to address the underlying discrimination and oppression which are the more fundamental and intractable aspects of gender issues, and the underlying causes of gender gaps. Women's occupation of leadership positions potentially enables women to address gender issues in all other areas of social and political life. For strategic benefits, it was recognised that the challenge for the women's movement is how to find the transformatory potential within the fairly high level of achievement at the self-reliance level, as a springboard into empowerment process. Participants however recalled that empowerment cannot be defined purely in terms of women's occupation of decision making positions in society, but rather as the process by which women collectively recognise their problems, and mobilise therefore to take action to achieve gender equality. Placed in a more or less chronological perspective, the women's empowerment process involves three focal engagements, namely conscientisation, mobilisation and control, all of which of were examined in considerable detail.

5. The WEI was presented as the central interest in the Index. Because women's empowerment in the Index focused on women's representation in higher levels of decision making positions in public institutions, it was recognised that it is a rather rough measure of women's empowerment as it overlooked the possibility of some women public office holders not actually exercising power, and the likelihood of impacts made by some women in background positions in shaping public policy. The Women's Empowerment Index was , however, retained as a basis for a simple, systematic and standardised method for measuring national progress, and for comparative purposes. Greater emphasis was also laid on the extent to which women occupy positions of higher levels of decision-making in society, so that they are in a position to challenge and change present structures of gender inequality.

6. The ensuing discussions stressed that political and electoral discourse and frameworks such as electoral laws and procedural norms and practices constitute core determining factors of occupation of leadership positions. Women's subordination, it was recalled is perpetuated by existing laws, regulations and beliefs of existing patriarchal systems, gender discrimination, gender oppression, patriarchal ideology, culture and coercion, rather than their education women's lack of enabling personal abilities and attributes. These questions would be considered in future editions of the Index.

7. Finally, four practical strategies, which are needed to promote the process of women's empowerment was also suggested in the Index. These are collective strategies of political action and negotiation to advance women's political representation, to gain increased control of public decision making positions, and to end gender discrimination through legislation, government policy, development policy and grassroots action, all examined with appreciable insight in the Index.

8. Participants were unanimous in then minimum on the relevance of periodical monitoring and evaluation of progress as an essential tool in supporting all strategies aimed at pushing political parties and governments to encourage the increased representation of women at the political and administrative levels of government. As it is undeniably recognised policy and planning with an understanding of gender does not come naturally to people, whether women or men. Therefore statistics in organisational, institutional and operational leadership will be required to foster gender-sensitive analyses and changes. While not underrating the importance of Government policies and action plans, actual numerical facts facilitate the setting of benchmarks, for the implementation of government commitments on women's participation. They provide concrete evidence of outcomes in terms of meaningful progress realised, or rather inconsequentiality and even regression as the case maybe.

9. The Africa Leadership Forum was highly commended for initiating and effectively developing the basic framework for measuring and monitoring State accomplishments towards women's empowerment in Africa. Participants underscored the value of the Index for gender equality agenda in Africa, while the same time and strongly urging various development partners and women networks themselves to support the Africa Leadership Forum towards the progressive deepening and strengthening of the Index. Coming just before the review of Addis Abeba meeting where African countries will evaluate progress achieved in implementing the Dakar and Beijing commitments, the Index was described as an innovative and opportune initiative for assessing progress and identifying gaps in women's participation in leadership and development in Africa.

10. On his part the Chairman of the Africa Leadership Forum, H.E Dr Mario Da Graca Machungo, Former Prime Minister of Mozambique thanked the leadership of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), BILANCE and the Global Coalition for Africa (GCA) , for their material support for the Meeting as well as the African Development Bank's readiness to support and host the Meeting. To participants, he expressed the deep appreciation of the Africa Leadership Forum for their co-operations in overcoming all odds to honour the Meeting with their presence. While reaffirming the commitment of the Africa Leadership Forum to greater gender equality, the ALF Chairman, observed that gender development has emerged in recent times as a major dimension of development efforts.In the light of this he observed that African women have demonstrated capabilities and potentials that extend far beyond domestic and reproductive tasks, that must be recognised and adequately tapped to fuel development efforts. He described the Index on the Status of Women in Africa, both in its conception and focus to be a negotiation platform and also, a social barometer intended to gauge the exact position of the African woman in the development continuum as a basis for appropriating urgent and result-oriented responses to the plight of women in Africa. It's appeal to collaborative rather than confrontational approaches to gender equality, he remarked, is a reflection of the African woman's apprehension of gender relations as conciliatory rather that combative giving various development actors an opportunity for constructive alternative approaches to gender development issues. Dr. Machungo challenged participants to correct the inevitable flaws when a appeared in the Index as normal occurrences common to all novel initiatives, in the fight to achieve gender equality Africa.>>>continued

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