A new dawn for Africa, and a new dawn for the continent's women and children
Sunday Independent, 28 January 2007
I had to look very far to find a prouder moment than January 15th this year when my home town, Cape Town, hosted a remarkable assembly, gathered for a critical purpose, at a crucial time. The Vital Voices Global Partnership, together with African and international partners, kicked off a new undertaking to recognise the critical role that African women and girls can and must play in moving the continent forward socially, politically and economically. The African Leadership Initiative for Women and Girls aims to build the capacity of over 200 emerging women leaders and girls throughout Africa and create a powerful new network of women across all sectors of society, while recognising and highlighting the advancements of African women leaders over the past decade.
It is absolutely essential that the voices of the women and girls of Africa are heard. As Germany takes over the Presidency of both the European Union and of the G8, pledging to put Africa’s development top of its agenda, Africans could not have started a year on a higher note than this. Later in 2007, we will pass the half way mark towards the Millennium Development Goals. Much has been achieved, but the challenges before us remain immense.
Many of the delegates at the Summit were not yet born in 1960, when the then British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, warned the apartheid parliament of South Africa of ‘the winds of change, blowing through the continent’, the inevitability of African independence beyond our colonial history and the political and economic dominance of others. However, these delegates are today experiencing the promised independence and are part of our continent as it consolidates its internal partnerships. They are part of a changing Africa, having witnessed the transformation of the Organisation of African Unity into the African Union five years ago, and the launch of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Even more impressive has been the strengthening of regional economic blocs – such as the East African Union, growing to include Rwanda and Burundi – further strides towards common currencies, and customs unions in east, west and southern Africa. All these changes point to one positive eventuality: Africa ceasing to be a mere amalgam of disparate countries. It is evolving into a unified force for socio-economic development in the 21st century.
We have no choice in this era of globalisation. Africa must change in order to assert its place, especially in fostering fair trade for its citizens. However, now in the first decade of what has been dubbed the African century, we have unprecedented opportunities to ensure this change is for the better. There are some signs of this beginning to happen.
Rodrigo de Rato, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, said recently that Africa is on the move. For the third year in a row, economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is likely to exceed 5 percent. Increasingly sound policies are underpinning this sustained growth, which will help us move closer towards true freedom. This is good news. We must keep up the momentum of the changes we have started and work constantly to reverse the negative image of Africa. We can only do this by striving for sustainable livelihoods, dignity, peace, respect for one another and a guarantee of human rights for all – especially women and girls.
One can only be delighted that the voices of women and girls, with their unique and powerful qualities, are increasingly being heard. And it is significant that the title of the Summit uses the plural: ‘Voices’, quashing the false notion that there is a single women’s perspective on issues that affect all women.
The Vital Voices Summit correctly acknowledges that every single person on this planet is created as a unique individual. Each and every woman has her own abilities and gifts, her own personality and character, culture and experience. Our common life is enriched when we hear, and learn from, the whole breadth that is represented at a Summit of this nature. So, it was pleasing for me to look out over a diverse sea of faces – representing different generations, different countries, different cultures, different faiths, different professions, and different interests.
But for all that difference, the women present at the Summit shared a single concern: the development of Africa into a mature continent of peace, justice, stability and of prosperity, where every African may flourish.
I was very proud to be part of this Summit, not only as Archbishop of Cape Town, but also as the founder and president of African Monitor. This is a pan-African non-government organisation, established to help the people of Africa ensure that the promises made for Africa’s development are delivered in ways that make a tangible and lasting difference, especially to the very poorest of our continent.
At African Monitor our motto is ‘African voices for Africa’s development’. Empowering African women, to be part of that process of holding both donors and our own leaders to account, is fundamental to our success. Women’s networks, both formal and informal, constitute the very fabric from which our societies are woven: a strong fabric that reflects the rich and vibrant strengths of African women.
This strength is evident in how women all over the world, in the face of untold adversity, always find imaginative ways with the most slender of resources to eke out a living. It is well documented that women and girls are disproportionately affected by poverty in all its ramifications. War, AIDS, malaria, cholera and famine have gradually turned Africa into a continent full of orphaned children and teenagers.
According to the latest statistics released by the United Nations’ (UN) Children’s Fund and the Joint United Nations’ Programme on HIV/AIDS, there are 48.3 million orphans south of the Sahara desert. Projections by the two UN agencies suggest that by 2010, there will be over 53 million children under 18 years of age bereft of their parents. Around a quarter of these are children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, AIDS in Africa has a woman’s face, as women and girls are disproportionately infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.
The oppression of women and girls has unfairly excluded them from structures of power and decision-making, both political and economic as well as in most other structures and institutions of Africa. Although this is slowly improving, the persistent kind of attitude influenced by an outdated culture of patriarchy led psychologist John Sanford to write:
“The psychology of individuation in our times is calling for a re-emphasis on feminine values, the emancipation of women from masculine domination, and the rediscovery of feminine archetypal images in the psyche. It also calls for the end to patriarchy and patriarchal values, that is, to the end of a psychological situation in which men dominate women, social structures are weighed in favour of men, feminine values are denigrated, and feminine images eclipsed in value by masculine ones.”
Repeated studies have shown that the most effective development happens when women are involved in both the drawing up, and implementation, of policies and programmes. This is because women bring a unique dynamic to team interaction and decision-making. In 2006, Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank were rightly awarded the Nobel Peace prize for their work with micro-credit, which has shown remarkable results when extended to women in Bangladesh and beyond. African women need the same opportunities.
Eleanor Roosevelt said: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” One can only urge all the women of our continent to keep dreaming dreams for a new Africa; to keep doing what they can to ensure accountability, transparency and a climate of good governance throughout the continent; to make it a continent of opportunity; and to make Africa’s people live in hope for their futures.
-ENDS-
* Ndungane is the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town and the President of the African Monitor