Educational policies and educational plans have likewise limited the ability of women to fully utilize their intellectual energies in the management in their economies. African states inherited gender stereotyped educational systems from the colonial states. To date, little has become done to transform these gender typed systems.
Very few women have access to institutions connected with higher learning, and those who do enter specific, stereotyped fields. In Tanzania and Zimbabwe, in particular, women constitute less than 25% of the total university student population. This means that very few women will be able to contribute to the management of their societies as managers, intellectuals and politicians. Under-representation of women in advanced schooling partly explains the marginalization of women in the mainstream of development planning, a factor which limits their contribution towards implementation of such plans. A more balanced development agenda for Africa needs the intellectual input of both ladies and men in the development process. This can only be achieved by removing gender barriers which limit women's having access to higher forms of education.
In addition to marginal participation of women in education, and in particular in institutions of higher learning, women are stereotyped into those disciplines which groom them for traditional roles like nursing, community service and secretarial work. In Bostwana, for instance, in 1990, university enrolment figures indicated that females were concentrated from the fields of Nursing, Bachelor of Education and Humanities, while males dominated the fields of Rules and Bachelor of Science. This implies that in the formal sector, women will be doing work in the health sector and other related services while men will continue to dominate the judiciary, law-making organs along with the scientific fields. This implies that women will continue to play a very marginal role in decisions the laws of the land and science and technology.
Women's Participation in Policy Making
Women constitute an exceptionally small minority in policy making bodies, such as parliament, cabinet, judiciary and managerial and management positions in both public and private sectors. Here in Zimbabwe, for instance, women's participation in legislative bodies since 1980 can be as follows:
Women have played a very marginal role in the cabinet. Presently, there are not any full-time women cabinet ministers.
Similarly, in Tanzania, women members of Parliament constitute a very small minority in spite of the introduction of a quota system, which has ensured the maintenance of a certain percentage connected with women in Parliament. Women members of parliament have scarcely exceeded 10%.
This trend explains why most states in this region have not made any fundamental changes in the laws they inherited from the pre-colonial patriarchal structures and the introduced by the colonial patriarchal rule, which favoured men. Such laws include those related to help issues of property rights, marriage and child custody.
Population Policies
Population policies and strategies are abusing women's reproductive rights. In South Africa for instance, the apartheid regime used forced contraception methods on black South African women as a political instrument to control the growth on the country's black community. 4 Most family planning methods in this region are not directed on enhancing women's reproductive rights. In most cases, they provide pharmaceutical companies with lucrative business for the expense of women's health and reproductive rights. For women to be able to participate fully from the development process, they should be able to determine the number of children they need, whenever they need them, and their spacing. This means having a right to decide on the style of contraceptives they use.
Modern contraceptive methods have also ignored the safer, traditional methods, which has been improved at lower cost in terms of the side effects and psychological trauma which result from the unpredictable consequences of the employment of modern contraceptives.
Related to the above are the development policies for human resource development. In underscoring the desire to invest in the development of human resources in Africa as a measure to promote development using a long-term basis, the Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Africa noted that, "Economic development and transformation will likely be impossible in Africa without sustained policies for human resource development and utilization. Therefore, Africa have to accord high priority to human resource development and utilization. "5
Unfortunately, most African states have considered the education of high-level human power as the only critical area for human resource development. This limited perception is also biased and is overtaken by the male gender. While this training of human resources is essential, I consider the quality of recruiting in its totality as being fundamental in promoting sustainable growth.
Human resources development and utilization must also remember to consider the reproductive processes, both biological and social, of human resources. Investment in development of recruiting has to include, among other things, maternal and child care services, education, water, housing in addition to health.
Unfortunately, the market model pursued by most African states has forced governments to abdicate their responsibility with the welfare of the people and their households. This is indicated in the budget cuts in social services like water, health, housing, education and sanitation, which have placed an increased workload and responsibility on individuals who shoulder the burden of social reproduction, that is, women.
The 'domestic' environment, for many African-american women, is very stressful. Women invest a lot of their productive energies in processing and making meals. The time wasted in looking for firewood and water, as well as time spent in processing food for making it ready for cooking, could be saved if water and firewood were within reach in case cooking stoves were improved. The grinding stone, which is still in use in many regions of Africa for processing maize and millet, the main traditional staple foods, consumes a lot connected with women's labour time. Where the grinding mill has been introduced, it is not making a large impact because some women have to spend long hours walking to the mill and even longer hours anticipating their turn.
The care of children remains essentially a woman's role. In the African regular setting, the care of young infants and siblings was a collective responsibility. This has been altered caused by various socio-economic changes which are taking place on the continent. Lack of community support in caring and rearing of children has achieved it extremely difficult for women to contribute effectively to promoting sustainable growth. Women have to perform the vast majority of their tasks with babies on their backs. This not only affects their labour output, but, in a negative way, their health and that of their babies. The impact of growing up on mothers' backs really needs to be carefully studied in terms of the development of the child's creative and innovative capacities.
As a way to enhance the quality of human resources, there is a need to invest in and increase the necessary tools of labour, as well as to provide support services for the reproduction on the human species. There is a need for a clearly spelled out policy which addresses the main question of human resources. The plans must clearly define the strategies which will facilitate the improvement on the reproductive process. This also means recognizing and giving value to reproductive tasks such as baby bearing, rearing and caring, caring for the sick and the old, and all the domestic chores meant for the maintenance and reproduction of human capital.
Political instability on the African continent has contributed largely towards inability of African states to fully exploit either material or human resources for development. That instability has paralyzed the economies of Mozambique and Angola, as the war situation has made productive work essentially impossible. Violence in South Africa has made it difficult for women to participate effectively with negotiations. The process which led to the signing of the peace accord, for instance, ignored women, yet women in South Africa have been in the forefront of the struggle with the establishment of a democratic and peaceful South African state. Women in South Africa will only have the capacity to contribute to the promotion of sustainable development if they are part of the process that'll shape the future of that country. This means that policies leading to the creation on the New South Africa cannot ignore the concerns of women who have suffered from sexual splendour, colonial oppression and racial discrimination, as well as class oppression.
Both men and women cannot do productive activities when the state fails to provide minimum security. For women, however, social insecurity is confined to war-torn countries. Existing legal systems have failed to protect women against abuses in their basic human rights. The majority of women are living in an actual and potentially beyond expectations and violent environment. The issue of domestic violence has not been addressed by existing political systems, yet the mass media is full of horrifying reports of domestic violence, especially next to women and children. Employers and senior executives have sexually harassed women. Some learning institutions, as well as universities, have created very hostile environments for female students; a factor which might constrain the academic performance, as well as discourage their participation in these institutions as students and tutorial staff. Women's contribution to the production of knowledge is thus diminished.
There seems to become a need for policies which clearly spell out what constitutes violence against women. Measures to protect women against various sorts of violence, including domestic violence and violence at the workplace, have to be clearly strategized.
Very few women have access to institutions connected with higher learning, and those who do enter specific, stereotyped fields. In Tanzania and Zimbabwe, in particular, women constitute less than 25% of the total university student population. This means that very few women will be able to contribute to the management of their societies as managers, intellectuals and politicians. Under-representation of women in advanced schooling partly explains the marginalization of women in the mainstream of development planning, a factor which limits their contribution towards implementation of such plans. A more balanced development agenda for Africa needs the intellectual input of both ladies and men in the development process. This can only be achieved by removing gender barriers which limit women's having access to higher forms of education.
In addition to marginal participation of women in education, and in particular in institutions of higher learning, women are stereotyped into those disciplines which groom them for traditional roles like nursing, community service and secretarial work. In Bostwana, for instance, in 1990, university enrolment figures indicated that females were concentrated from the fields of Nursing, Bachelor of Education and Humanities, while males dominated the fields of Rules and Bachelor of Science. This implies that in the formal sector, women will be doing work in the health sector and other related services while men will continue to dominate the judiciary, law-making organs along with the scientific fields. This implies that women will continue to play a very marginal role in decisions the laws of the land and science and technology.
Women's Participation in Policy Making
Women constitute an exceptionally small minority in policy making bodies, such as parliament, cabinet, judiciary and managerial and management positions in both public and private sectors. Here in Zimbabwe, for instance, women's participation in legislative bodies since 1980 can be as follows:
Women have played a very marginal role in the cabinet. Presently, there are not any full-time women cabinet ministers.
Similarly, in Tanzania, women members of Parliament constitute a very small minority in spite of the introduction of a quota system, which has ensured the maintenance of a certain percentage connected with women in Parliament. Women members of parliament have scarcely exceeded 10%.
This trend explains why most states in this region have not made any fundamental changes in the laws they inherited from the pre-colonial patriarchal structures and the introduced by the colonial patriarchal rule, which favoured men. Such laws include those related to help issues of property rights, marriage and child custody.
Population Policies
Population policies and strategies are abusing women's reproductive rights. In South Africa for instance, the apartheid regime used forced contraception methods on black South African women as a political instrument to control the growth on the country's black community. 4 Most family planning methods in this region are not directed on enhancing women's reproductive rights. In most cases, they provide pharmaceutical companies with lucrative business for the expense of women's health and reproductive rights. For women to be able to participate fully from the development process, they should be able to determine the number of children they need, whenever they need them, and their spacing. This means having a right to decide on the style of contraceptives they use.
Modern contraceptive methods have also ignored the safer, traditional methods, which has been improved at lower cost in terms of the side effects and psychological trauma which result from the unpredictable consequences of the employment of modern contraceptives.
Related to the above are the development policies for human resource development. In underscoring the desire to invest in the development of human resources in Africa as a measure to promote development using a long-term basis, the Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Africa noted that, "Economic development and transformation will likely be impossible in Africa without sustained policies for human resource development and utilization. Therefore, Africa have to accord high priority to human resource development and utilization. "5
Unfortunately, most African states have considered the education of high-level human power as the only critical area for human resource development. This limited perception is also biased and is overtaken by the male gender. While this training of human resources is essential, I consider the quality of recruiting in its totality as being fundamental in promoting sustainable growth.
Human resources development and utilization must also remember to consider the reproductive processes, both biological and social, of human resources. Investment in development of recruiting has to include, among other things, maternal and child care services, education, water, housing in addition to health.
Unfortunately, the market model pursued by most African states has forced governments to abdicate their responsibility with the welfare of the people and their households. This is indicated in the budget cuts in social services like water, health, housing, education and sanitation, which have placed an increased workload and responsibility on individuals who shoulder the burden of social reproduction, that is, women.
The 'domestic' environment, for many African-american women, is very stressful. Women invest a lot of their productive energies in processing and making meals. The time wasted in looking for firewood and water, as well as time spent in processing food for making it ready for cooking, could be saved if water and firewood were within reach in case cooking stoves were improved. The grinding stone, which is still in use in many regions of Africa for processing maize and millet, the main traditional staple foods, consumes a lot connected with women's labour time. Where the grinding mill has been introduced, it is not making a large impact because some women have to spend long hours walking to the mill and even longer hours anticipating their turn.
The care of children remains essentially a woman's role. In the African regular setting, the care of young infants and siblings was a collective responsibility. This has been altered caused by various socio-economic changes which are taking place on the continent. Lack of community support in caring and rearing of children has achieved it extremely difficult for women to contribute effectively to promoting sustainable growth. Women have to perform the vast majority of their tasks with babies on their backs. This not only affects their labour output, but, in a negative way, their health and that of their babies. The impact of growing up on mothers' backs really needs to be carefully studied in terms of the development of the child's creative and innovative capacities.
As a way to enhance the quality of human resources, there is a need to invest in and increase the necessary tools of labour, as well as to provide support services for the reproduction on the human species. There is a need for a clearly spelled out policy which addresses the main question of human resources. The plans must clearly define the strategies which will facilitate the improvement on the reproductive process. This also means recognizing and giving value to reproductive tasks such as baby bearing, rearing and caring, caring for the sick and the old, and all the domestic chores meant for the maintenance and reproduction of human capital.
Political instability on the African continent has contributed largely towards inability of African states to fully exploit either material or human resources for development. That instability has paralyzed the economies of Mozambique and Angola, as the war situation has made productive work essentially impossible. Violence in South Africa has made it difficult for women to participate effectively with negotiations. The process which led to the signing of the peace accord, for instance, ignored women, yet women in South Africa have been in the forefront of the struggle with the establishment of a democratic and peaceful South African state. Women in South Africa will only have the capacity to contribute to the promotion of sustainable development if they are part of the process that'll shape the future of that country. This means that policies leading to the creation on the New South Africa cannot ignore the concerns of women who have suffered from sexual splendour, colonial oppression and racial discrimination, as well as class oppression.
Both men and women cannot do productive activities when the state fails to provide minimum security. For women, however, social insecurity is confined to war-torn countries. Existing legal systems have failed to protect women against abuses in their basic human rights. The majority of women are living in an actual and potentially beyond expectations and violent environment. The issue of domestic violence has not been addressed by existing political systems, yet the mass media is full of horrifying reports of domestic violence, especially next to women and children. Employers and senior executives have sexually harassed women. Some learning institutions, as well as universities, have created very hostile environments for female students; a factor which might constrain the academic performance, as well as discourage their participation in these institutions as students and tutorial staff. Women's contribution to the production of knowledge is thus diminished.
There seems to become a need for policies which clearly spell out what constitutes violence against women. Measures to protect women against various sorts of violence, including domestic violence and violence at the workplace, have to be clearly strategized.
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