Empowerment of women in Africa and the Arab world: Merits, prospects and challenges (I)

History, the world over, is replete with the achievements of men folk and their contributions to the development processes and from time immemorial the position of women in the structure of society has never been commensurately considered on the same plain as that of men, they have been regarded as a second-fiddle. It is in […]

History, the world over, is replete with the achievements of men folk and their contributions to the development processes and from time immemorial the position of women in the structure of society has never been commensurately considered on the same plain as that of men, they have been regarded as a second-fiddle.

It is in line with the above that Ker (1999) argued that women all over the world, and especially in the Afro-Arab states, have been categorized under the disadvantaged groups of people and society itself has systematically and consistently pursued the socialization of women into accepting the notion of disadvantaged group.    Given the preponderance of this categorization of women as a disadvantaged group of people, a social reengineering process is required to introduce equality through emancipation and empowerment.

In spite of the principle of equality of men and women provided for in both the UN charter of 1945 and the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, majority of nations in the Afro-Arab world are yet to fully address women’s empowerment in the development process. In fact, evidence has shown that development planners in Afro-Arab states work on the assumption that programmes that benefit one section of the society (men) would automatically trickle down to the other (women). In many African and Arab societies, there are even deliberate efforts put in place through laws, customs and traditions to orchestrate the perpetual marginalization of the female folk. Consequently, many initiatives to respond to women’s concern and to address issues related to women’s rights have emerged in international fora, notably the UN Women’s Conference in Beijing. All of these efforts are geared towards the empowerment of the female folk in order to create the opportunity for them to realize their full potentials.

The economic empowerment of women has equally emerged as an important aspect of sustainable and accelerated development in developing countries since the Beijing Conference in 1995. The persistent and increasing burden of poverty on women is a critical concern in the Beijing Platform for Action and it is also a phenomenon addressed in the MDGs and NEPAD.

As rightly observed by the AU (2008) there is now overwhelming evidence that empowerment of women is one key variable in fighting poverty, HIV and AIDS, infant and maternal mortality, violence against women, gender discrimination as well as  closing existing gender gaps and providing equal opportunities and representation. It is now clear that the achievement of the eight MDG goals will be greatly dependent on the achievement of Millennium Development Goal number one (MDG1) on poverty eradication and Millennium Development Goal  number three (MDG3) on gender equality. The link between gender equality and economic growth is well established.

Studies in India show that States that have a higher number of women in the workforce are growing faster and lifting more people out of poverty that those States that have fewer women. Indeed it is also estimated that Sub-Saharan Africa would have almost doubled its annual growth between 1960 and 1992 if it had closed the gender gap in schooling at the pace of East Asia.   

The need for empowerment arises from the inability of an individual or a group of people to actualise their dreams and reach their greatest potentials due to artificial barriers created by individuals and other groups within the same society. It is the manifestation of an incontrovertible inequality, segregation or marginalization. To Oxfam (1995) “empowerment involves challenging oppression which compels millions of people to play a part in their society on terms which are inequitable, or in ways which deny them their human rights” Okeke (1995) submitted that “to empower means to give power to, to give authority to, to enable a person or a group of persons gain power”. Batliwa (1995) in her definition of the term empowerment stated that:            

Empowerment is the process and the result of the process  whereby the powerless or less powerful members of the society gain greater access   and control over material and  knowledge, resources, challenges and ideologies of discrimination and subordination and transform the institutions and structures through which unequal access and control over resources is sustained and perpetuated.  

The foregoing definitions show that empowerment implies that an individual or a group had hitherto lacked power or authority by circumstances, denial or default.  The issue of women empowerment has become a part of popular debate. It has however been misconstrued in a myriad of ways; to a great majority empowerment suggests women’s power to fight men, including their husbands.  

The very mention of the term empowerment generates strong emotional connotations that construe violent revolutionary action of some sort or the other, organized by the women against the established institutions. Since the days of yore, the oppression of women has been a major global dilemma and a source of concern to many international institutions like ECOWAS, UN, AU etc. The concept of empowerment based on assuaging the oppressions of the women has led to the establishment of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) whose primary role is to promote the participation of women at all levels of development planning and implementation.

To be continued