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Post by Onyango Oloo on Oct 15, 2006 14:27:56 GMT 3
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Oct 16, 2006 10:45:35 GMT 3
Now, listen to me!
'Women' is a buzz word in development circles. So why are so many
African women still so poor? Wanjiru Kihoro gives an inside view.
Article first appeared in New Internationalist
Issue 227 - January 1992
They were shocked. We were looking at summaries of the agency's projects in Africa. But here was I, an African woman on the grants committee of a British aid agency, suggesting that we scrap a paragraph that dealt with 'gender implications'.
My colleagues protested. The paragraph was very important, they said. At least it forced project officers to consider the role of women. I argued that in most cases it was quite clear that the projects officers had not paid any serious attention to gender issues. So why pretend?
Many of the projects were described as having women participants - but the question of what kind of participation was never addressed. Neither was the question of control and decision making.
Foreign aid agencies are seen to be playing a vital role in meeting the basic needs of underprivileged women, especially those in rural areas. But if planners do not see what the women are already doing in their societies the projects will fail. Let me give you a classic example that happened in the Gambia during the mid 1980s.
It was a rice production project, funded by an array of international agencies and charities. The planners automatically assumed that the households were headed by men - either husbands or fathers who managed the resources on behalf of other members. They also assumed that the rice-growers were men. Credits and inputs were offered to men - who took them. No-one took the trouble to find out that it was actually the women who traditionally grew the rice for domestic consumption and who exchanged the surplus.
Worse still, the scheme was going to develop irrigated rice production on common lands to which women had secured use rights. With the support of project and government officials men established exclusive rights to these common lands, pushing women onto inferior plots to continue cultivating traditional rice varieties. The women had to negotiate everything through their husbands. When finally they were expected to provide labour for free on their husbands' plots the women refused and demanded to be paid in full. The project was a fiasco.
This example shows the weight Western development planners have given to cash crop production (controlled by men) over subsistence farming (done by women). The principle economic activity in Africa is subsistence agriculture done by women - so why did the planners not invest development aid in this area, which would also relieve hunger?
They should know better by now. Already back in the mid-1970s women had been 'discovered' by development planners - who simultaneously discovered that aid programmes had failed to eradicate poverty. Since then much lip service has been paid to the equal participation of women in development. The easy solution was to 'integrate' women into existing development models. There followed numerous income-generating handicrafts and nutrition education projects for women, some of which brought short-term help to a few people. But in most cases the 'double burden' of work already carried out by women was ignored. So was the low status of women which limits women's access to land, credit, machinery, markets for their products and control over any income raised.
Even after the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985) highlighted and publicized the important - but previously unacknowledged - role of women in economic and social development this blind spot covering the role of African women remains.
Colonialism is largely to blame. It established a capitalist economy, created urban migration and left women to carry their own workload in addition to that of the departed men in the rural areas. The perceived inferiority of women to men - which existed in most pre-colonial African societies - was reinforced by the colonists and their religions.
National independence brought changes - but still no recognition of the central role played by women. For example, issues of women and development in most African countries are still dealt with by a Ministry of Culture and Social Development which is also responsible for youth, sports, culture and destitutes. African women are still, it seems, regarded as objects of recreation (as in sports), or art (as in culture) or social liabilities (as with destitutes) rather than assets in the development process.
So what can be done to attain women's real and recognized participation in development? Feminism is crucial for it provides a consciousness and a commitment to change which are the sources of energy that can mobilize women. It may be an emotive word in Africa but feminism is not a new or foreign concept to us. It was not imposed on us by the United Nations or by Western feminists, but has an independent history. As feminists from WIN (Women in Nigeria) have observed: 'One of the most recurrent charges made to and about Third World women is that of being blind copy cats of Western European feminists'. This is 'a divide-and-rule tactic', a 'ploy created and maintained to confuse women, to bind them to their respective men and male systems and to prevent a dangerous comparing of notes and political unity', they conclude.
In so far as they are involved in the struggle for women's rights, African women are feminists. Opinions vary, of course. Strategies vary. Some believe that the battle to obtain equal rights with men within the existing status quo is enough. Men are seen as the enemy. Other feminists go further and ask: 'Has colonialism, neo-colonialism and development as we know it necessarily helped all African men?'
I believe it is unrealistic to expect any viable development to happen while the burden of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank conditions weighs so heavily on the daily lives of the poor, particularly women. The export-oriented policies required by the IMF may have increased women's participation in cash crop production, but at the price of devaluing and impoverishing women who are subsistence farmers.
Poor countries cannot afford to pay foreign debts. They must be cancelled. Nor can we afford unsuitable development models that marginalize women. What we need is to create strong social movements, involving both women and men, who are committed to popular participation, sexual equality, and redistribution of wealth.
There are examples of such organizations growing in Africa. The Organization of Rural Advancement and Progress (ORAP) in Zimbabwe, for example. Or grassroots groups like the Tanzanian Media Women's Organization (TAMWA) and Women in Nigeria (WIN).
Many African women now see no point in being 'integrated' into a mainstream Western-influenced development in which we have no say. Women are the group most harmed by the existing development strategies. So we will have to be the ones at the forefront in defining and creating a new self-reliant, people-centred development.
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Oct 16, 2006 11:45:59 GMT 3
revisit the link to see a couple of updates and some comments.
oo
nbi
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Post by mzeiya on Oct 20, 2006 3:37:37 GMT 3
Mr. Onyango, I want to take issue with your above comments. Yes the deceased was a politician and politicians are involved in her burial arrangements, but it does not benefit anyone (other than your ego) if you at this period of mourning choose to attack the govt.
Like Shiro said, now is a time of mourning. The family needs our support and prayers. Afterwards, we can make capital of the events leading to her death. Its called being civil. I hope you will hold your high horse next time. It doesnt cost you anything to be civil and/or mature.
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Post by Onyango Oloo on Oct 20, 2006 10:53:08 GMT 3
Mr. Onyango, I want to take issue with your above comments. Yes the deceased was a politician and politicians are involved in her burial arrangements, but it does not benefit anyone (other than your ego) if you at this period of mourning choose to attack the govt. Like Shiro said, now is a time of mourning. The family needs our support and prayers. Afterwards, we can make capital of the events leading to her death. Its called being civil. I hope you will hold your high horse next time. It doesnt cost you anything to be civil and/or mature.
muriungi:let me tell you something. this whole week has seen an entire POLITICAL program called " Kusherekea Maisha ya Shujaa Wanjiru" taking place at the Holy Family Basilica. I will post something about it later. It has been done with the full consent of Wanjiru's parents, her widower Wanyiri and her kids, siblings and other relatives. Her funeral committee, which has again the full approval of the family is composed of such political people like Njeri Kabeberi ( the chair of the committee) Gitobu Imanyara, Onyango Oloo, Mtumishi Kathangu, Ng'ang'a Thiong'o and others. It is therefore simply IGNORANT and HYPOCRITICAL for you to impute things that are NOT shared by the actual family members that some of us interact with almost on a daily basis- as opposed to the "family" which is a figment of your own imagination. Onyango Oloo
Nairobi, Kenya |
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Post by KOLONEL BRISK on Oct 30, 2006 10:34:42 GMT 3
Thank you Bro/Mr O O for the role you played in Comrade Wanjiru's funeral. I was privileged to spend time with my Grandfather, (P.b.u.h). He shared with me some African rituals and rites that were performed during the funeral of a warrior. They would have a mock fight to show how tough the man was. His attributes were openly spoken of with out fear. In the religions of Africa, life does not end with death, but continues in another realm. The concepts of "life" and "death" are not mutually exclusive concepts, and there are no clear dividing lines between them. Human existence is a dynamic process involving the increase or decrease of "power" or "life force," of "living" and "dying," and there are different levels of life and death. Death, although a dreaded event, is perceived as the beginning of a person's deeper relationship with all of creation, the complementing of life and the beginning of the communication between the visible and the invisible worlds. The goal of life is to become an ancestor after death.
Today when a soldier dies we could argue that we should not give a 21 gun Salute since it will painfully remind the bereaved family of what their loved one went through, yet that is not the case. I strongly believe if the family wishes that politics should be part of the funeral then who are we to decide otherwise for them?. If she was being attacked for her political stand then i would have issues with that. We are not ashamed of what she did, we are proud that she made her stand known and fought the political battles without fear. Please continue to update us on the contributions that other people have made or are making in this 2nd Liberation struggle. Aluta Continua
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