Democracy as an Institution for the Empowerment of Women: A Development Challenge for the African Union

By

Nduka Uzuakpundu

One of the greatest development challenges that is currently facing African governments is how they can harness the innate potentials of the continent's female population as a first step towards making them very relevant and as active partners in the issues of governance and democracy. Indeed, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the melting of the Soviet Union and the apparent end of the Cold War era, it is if the new craze in representative government has made it quite mandatory for African policy-makers, who must seek the votes and mandate of the population – a greater part of which constitutes, in some instances, women – to reflect the aspiration of almost every active participant in the electoral process – as a matter of – “charity to all and malice to none.” It has been some 40 years since most African countries gained independence from their colonial masters, who were based in metropolitan Europe. During the immediate post-colonial era, when most of the continent was under military rule, there was an uncanny transfer of the traditional practices of leadership, which tended to exclude women from the position of leadership and decision-making. It was as if the modernity that was supposed to have dawned on the new African society of the post-colonial era was practically not there. The ugly era of crushing and retrogressive military rule made it a lot more binding to push deep into the back burner an issue like a fair representation of women in the various institutions of public life. It was difficult, then, to speak of democracy, in that the idea of military rule, in itself, presupposed that popular leadership and such appurtenances, which it offers, naturally, like equal and popular representation in government, was, tacitly, discounted.

Today, Africa is beginning to make some progress on the democratic turf. The major international events of the late ’80s and the first half of the ’90s – again, the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War era and the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW), in Beijing, China, have posed a form of challenge to Africa's nascent democracies to exploit the current environment to press the rights of women in all its ramifications. It is no less a task for the African women, who constitute a little more than half the population to see just how they could take a good advantage of the democratic tide to help their rapid notch on the political and social ladders. Fact, of course, is that most African countries are signatories to a myriad of international treaties on the rights of the individual – including the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights of 1948, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) of 1979, the African Charter on Peoples'Rights, the Beijing Platform For Action (BPFA), amongst others.

To a certain degree, these treaties and conventions make cases for some of positive discrimination in favour of women. They also are against unprogressive cultural practices that tend to hold back the political advancement of women. They root in against early child marriage, as they say, with a touch of informed defiance, “yes” to the education of the girl child – and, by implication, the eradication of illiteracy. They are, further, on the side of women's access to equity and social justice, as they are opposed political and economic systems that tend to victimise women in the organised distribution of resources – and poverty alleviation efforts. They are in disfavour of female genital mutilation, violence against women, trafficking in women, forced prostitution, marital rape, dowry-related violence, battering, sexual abuse and harassment, unequal taxation and disinheritance, as they are openly sympathetic to the various rights of women – alongside reproductive and health rights. In broad terms, these conventions, like the municipal laws of African states, back women's right to life, the right to dignity of the human person, the right to personal liberty, the right to fair hearing, the right to private and family life, the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, the right to freedom of expression, the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to freedom from discrimination and the right against compulsory acquisition of property without compensation. All these are well worth treasuring in an age, as this, besieged by the monstrous, yet medically-resilient HW/A1DS scourge.

For African women, the political score card, in the decade since Beijing, has not been quite impressive.

There may be sprinkles of women representation in positions of leadership, but they are, quite egregiously, a reminder that the old habit of tokenism – and the somewhat selfish intendment to retain the male lead and dominance in political office has still not melted. The euphoria that may have greeted the creation of Ministry of Women Affairs – soon after Beijing – could be said, in retrospect, to have been misplaced. The political creation, in the eyes – and judgement – of most African women, looks vacuous. It does not seem independent as to be able to express programmes, within the political setting, to instill in women, at the municipal level, that much-need sense of belonging that it ought to; that on the part of women, let it be said that ‘here is a long-sought ministry that should take care of our peculiar political needs. Essentially, in most African countries, where it exists, the new, supposedly politically-focused ministry remains blunted by bureaucracy that seems to be dragging the democratic progress of women to the wrong direction, if at all.
The idea of having democracy as a political institution for women's advancement, does not presuppose that the harm long done to civil society in general – by years of military rule – can be nighted overnight. Thus, there is, for all that, a pressing need to reconstruct and revitalise both civil society and the relevant political institutions that military dictatorship had sought, as is its wont, to disable. The issue of reconstruction assumes, here, that, for instance, the process of popular participation in the political process, ought to be assumingly inviting to female voters. A process that seeks to remake the society of nascent democracy, in which African women find themselves, ought to seek the views of organised women associations – as distinct from political parties – from such outfits as the professional bodies and the academia. The tendency to embark on crucial political programmes, without feeding, as a matter of course, into such programmes the informed views of women ought to cease. Within the distance, today’s nascent democracies, in the continent, cannot afford the luxury of leaving African women behind. Educational institutions have to be restructured – and rejuvenated – so as to make them attractive for women to aspire to heights, until lately, unimaginable. Scholarship for special courses – engineering, political science, gender, constitutional government and democratic studies, industrial relations, poverty reduction or alleviation, micro-credit finance, community development, economics and space-related programmes – ought to be specially designed for women. And there is no reason why government should not be persuaded to finance such courses via scholarship or a form of loan for their prospective beneficiaries.

Some commentators wonder whether it is practical for democracy to be a useful instrument for the advancement of the political needs and rights of women, especially amid the burden of gargantuan foreign debts, which most African states are laden with. Still, the idea being pressed here is very practical – given good governance, and affirmative action, as in South Africa and Uganda. Both Pretoria and Kampala are, so far, the best examples in the continent – regarding conscious political effort by the state to press the political progress of women.

Their constitutions make it so binding for the state to practise some form of positive discrimination in favour of women. The case of Pretoria, it could be argued, is predicated on a political bent to right the wrongs of the years of apartheid done to the political and social psyche of the country so as to ensure, in one breath, the emergence of a truly non-racial, multi-party and democratic society – where no wo(man) will be oppressed.

And Kampala's case also merits some mention: It has a female vice-president – and South Africa, too, following the fall of Comrade Jacob Zuma – who is seen as a role model for many ambitious Ugandan women. To that extent, Uganda could be said to be striving towards the creation of a gender-friendly society – even amid a war of attrition against the Kone-led Lord's Resistance Army. Some defence experts say the elevation of the status of the vice-president's post to be occupied by a woman – at least for now – was to make the war—indeed, the process of sustainable national development—a shared burden amongst the male and female populations of the country! Thus, the political ploy is to erase the gripping impression that the war is being fought in defence of the interest of a powerful few, who are men – and most probably men who are not quite good champions of the political advancement of women. However persuasive, it ought to be well worth the while of other African states to emulate the woman-friendly examples of Pretoria and Kampala.

Still, amid the burden of crushing foreign debt – some of which was forgive recently by the Northern Creditors – what is, perhaps, necessary, on the part of Africa's political leaders and policy-makers, is the political will and commitment to press the progress of women. Yes, it is true that the structure of international relations and international political economy may make it binding on the skippers of the establishment to honour their obligations, it is no less, demanding that Africa's democratically-elected leaders should make a choice between servicing debts – some of which are of decidedly dubious origin, which has the potential of causing voters, including women, to go to bed without food – and taking measures that would, inevitably, make Africa's nascent democracies (there are 32 of them today, compared to just three in the early ’70s) to be comfortable and reliable ambiance to help the plight of women – to the extent of empowering them to hold those they vote into office accountable. The 21st Century democratic craze in the continent should be an occasion to see African women beyond the stereotype of mobilisers of voters, especially at the grassroots level, or – as in the traditional, pre-colonial setting – industrious, but voiceless, home-maker and a faithful transmitter of culture.

There is a need to netralise the male-domination of Africa's nascent democracies, by having women well represented – perhaps as a protest against the unfulfilled promises of the past – part of which has been a culprit for the political draw back of women – and, worse still, the fact that they were men, since independence, who, at one time or the other, harmed or truncated the prospects of democracy by dragging African states into cross-border wars. And, in plethora of such conflict instances – as in the Horn of Africa, the Mano River Basin, the Nile Valley and the Great Lakes region – women were often the first victims: displaced, targeted for rape and dislodged and forced to flee conflict zones as refugees. One dares say that history may be tempted to repeat itself – to the extent of poisoning the fountain of trust, such that democracy – and all the dividends it holds in a leash – would become a mirage, if women’s issues are not treated with the seriousness they deserve.

All these are a challenge to the African Union, whose Constitutive Act sounds rather too lukewarm on the political progress of women. As in the era of the Organisation of African Unity, African political leaders and policy-makers should not be deluded that the continent can make promising and sustainable progress, when half of its productive population – women – are marginalised – in almost every sphere of public life. There is a compelling need for a change. Africa's political milieu ought to be respectful of women's rights and make them feel genuinely as men's equal in politics. The new democracies need a swarming number of women in cabinet posts, as heads of public institutions and leaders of viable political parties – partly as a means of consolidation of the system, and also as a strategy to give women the needed power and focus to be constructively engaged in the democratic dispensation.

With women in politics, there would be some well protected room for orderly and peaceful change and a foundation would have been laid for the creation of the much-needed awareness amongst the womenfolk – and the rest of society – to always ensure that both candidates and political parties that aspire to lead are made to have specific programmes for the advancement of women – as it is done in the welfarist systems of Scandinavia and elsewhere in the West. With such women in and out of office, a culture of leadership and lobbying those in power would have been founded amongst the voting cluster. In effect, the new African democracies have to be responsive to the needs of the continent's women. For women's sake, the essence of the new democracies in Africa should be good governance and progress against political institutions and cultural habits and cultures that have tended to impoverish them. Thus, it is imperative to have some form of political re-orientation for today's political leaders so that they could see the dire need to reverse the ills of yesterday’s political system – alongside media representation, that makes it easy to exploit and tax women without offering them a sound representation in government.

This is morally unfair – and, if it continues for too long, unchecked – could be quite crippling and retrogressive to the noble cause of democracy. *Nduka Uzuakpundu is on the Foreign Affairs Desk of a Lagos-based newspaper – VANGUARD.