gender

Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health Risk Index for Sub-Saharan Africa

carol — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:45:57 -0600

In 2008 the number of African women who died from pregnancy and child birth was much higher than the number of casualties from all the major conflicts in Africa combined. Maternal mortality continues to be the major cause of death among women of reproductive age (15-49) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Most of these women die from complications that can often be effectively treated in a health system that has adequate skilled personnel, a functioning referral system and can respond to obstetric emergencies when they occur.

This report from Population Action International looks at the performance of Sub-Saharan African countries in meeting reproductive health targets in 47 countries and ranks them using a set of ten indicators in order of the highest to lowest risk. It highlights the need to increase the level of investment in reproductive health, step up policy reform and implementation, expand access to services in rural areas, strengthen health systems, promote the realization of rights and abolish retrogressive cultural practices that perpetuate gender inequities and put the lives of women and girls at risk.

Information Provided by Carol Lombard, Department of Social Development Population Website

KM & Social Challenges

UNFPA Toolkit Focuses on Women, Population and Climate Change

carol — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:11:18 -0600

© UNFPA, WEDO14 October 2009: The UN Population Fund (UNFPA), together with the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), has launched a resource kit on climate change connections, focusing on gender and population and advocating that women are uniquely positioned as innovators, educators, caretakers, leaders and agents of change to address the risks of a changing climate.

The resource kit provides policy guidance, finance and adaptation plans, advocacy tools and best practices related to increasing educational opportunities for girls, economic opportunities for women, and access to reproductive health and family planning, recognizing their role in reducing vulnerability to climate change. Women, population and climate change are the focus of the UNFPA's flagship report, State of World Population, to be released on 18 November 2009. UNFPA Resource Kit: Climate Change Connections - Gender and Population https://www.unfpa.org/public/site/global/lang/en/pid/4028

Climate Change Connections

UNFPA and WEDO have developed a comprehensive resource kit on gender, population and climate change. Learn how gender equality can reduce vulnerability to climate change impacts and how women are uniquely positioned to help curb the harmful consequences of a changing climate.

Climate change is already impacting populations and ecosystems around the globe. Exacerbating poverty and leading to infrastructural breakdown, it threatens to set back development efforts by decades, profoundly affecting all of us.

But the impact won't be felt equally. Those with the fewest resources will be most susceptible to its negative effects - particularly women, the majority of the world's poor. At the same time, women's vulnerability can obscure the fact that they are an untapped resource in efforts to cope with the effects of climate change and reduce the emissions that cause it. As innovators, organizers, leaders, educators and caregivers, women are uniquely positioned to help curb the harmful consequences of a changing climate. Incorporating a gender perspective into climate change policies, projects and funds is crucial in ensuring that women contribute to and benefit from equitable climate solutions.

Overview: Women at the Forefront https://www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/shared/documents/publications/2...
Policy that Supports Gender Equality https://www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/shared/documents/publications/2...
Common Ground: In Bangladesh, Ghana, Nepal, Senegal and Trinidad and Tobago https://www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/shared/documents/publications/2...
Making NAPAs Work for Women https://www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/shared/documents/publications/2...
Financing that Makes a Difference https://www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/shared/documents/publications/2...
Educate and Advocate https://www.unfpa.org/webdav/site/global/shared/documents/publications/2009/climateconnections_6_advocacy.pdf

Information Provided by Carol Lombard, Department of Social Development Population Website

KM & the Environment

Sex Politics. Reports from the Front Lines

carol — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:09:27 -0600

This publication from GTZ can be used as an instrument for the application of concepts, approaches and methods for transforming unequal gender relations. Each topic is introduced by a short outline of the issue, followed by subsequent steps of action. A project example illustrates the application of the method in a selected sociocultural context.

From the introduction:

"Gender equality is a necessary element to secure sustainable livelihoods of women, men and their children. Gender Equality is not only a goal in itself, but is also necessary to achieve all eight Millennium Development Goals. In particular, gender equality will ensure success in the areas of poverty alleviation, environmental sustainability, HIV/AIDS, child mortality, maternal health and primary education. Many international, regional and national agreements foreground the importance of gender equality to development cooperation, in donor- and partner countries. In their daily work, actors and stakeholders can refer to the following documents:

Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979)
Beijing Platform for Action (1995)
Millennium Development Declaration (2000)
UN-Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (2000)
Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality (2004)
BMZ Concept for the Promotion of Equal Participation by Women and Men in Development Process (2001/05)
UN-Resolution 1820 on Sexual Violence against Civilians in Conflict (2008)
Accra Agenda for Action (2008)
BMZ Genderaktionsplan (2009)

Information Provided by Carol Lombard, Department of Social Development Population Website

KM & Social Challenges

Gendered ICT and Peacebuilding in Africa: A case of Missed Opportunities

storytelling — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:20:33 -0600

Author : Shastry Njeru, Midlands State University, P. Bag 9055, Gweru, Zimbabwe

Abstract

Inter-operability and use of ICT in crisis situations is not only about saving life, but a new life. The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has cathartic effects on divided societies. In violent conflicts that have taken place in modern times women have suffered much more than their male counterparts because of their ‘biological fate’ or what others have called ‘anatomy of destiny’. In most of Africa, women constitute the majority in the population. Yet they remain marginalized in knowledge, networks, and economic and political matters. As a result a lot of energy is left out in the process of national healing and peacebuilding. The recognition of women can provide ‘a new set of opportunities’ for nurturing a fragile peacebuilding process. The peacebuilding processes could be strengthened if organizations, people and regions connect ‘in effective multi-sectoral and peace building networks and provided with active and open knowledge banks. ICT can provide such connections, case studies and can bridge communication gaps between peace process stakeholders. The women can participate in the process from the grassroots upwards. This paper posits that marginalizing women can be retrogressive in the peacebuilding process and ICT can be used to mitigate against this problem in Africa.

Introduction

The United Nations Resolution 1325 of 2000 dealing with “Women, Peace and Security’1 was ground breaking for women’s peace activism in the sense that it provided a coherent policy framework for promoting women’s involvement in the wide array of issues related to peace and security (Crisis Group 2006). However, the progress along this resolution has been more limited in countries where leaderships remain hostile to a greater role for women in peacemaking and peacebuilding. What can be done to dismantle the barriers that prevent women from greater participation in conflict prevention, conflict resolution, peacebuilding and post-conflict governance? Yet, women peacebuilders, often without formal support, are trying to bring security to their communities, countries and regions. What can be done to recognise and support the role and capacities of women in preventing and mitigating conflict so that it does not remain an afterthought? Against a backdrop of persistent violence, exclusion and decaying social services, many see improving the status of women as an issue to be addressed further down the road, in a time of peace. Consensus is not strong around the view that women in Africa need to be empowered through gendered ICT to enable them to be involved confidently in their nations’ peacebuilding programmes.

In majority of cases women have been left out as a result of their gender rather than supposed incompatibility with ICT. Just like many institutions in Africa, the ICT has not effectively escaped the problems of gender discrimination. The belief that technology knows no gender is openly challenged in Africa where technology is not only framed in a masculine way but is refusing to change. Even in economies like South Africa, only ‘17% of women have access to ICT related services’ (Huyer and Sikoska 2003) . Women have watched the benefits of technology accruing to men for a long time from a distance and bridges to this divide have been constantly destroyed with every step. There is a group of critics who argue persuasively that in Africa women need clean water, adequate food, health rather than worry about ICT. They do not see the connection between these necessities with ICT.

On daily basis in a normal peaceful African state, structural conditions are pitted against empowering of women. During times of war women suffer all kinds of violations and in peace times the cultural stakes are far against them. Some women are married off early in their lives to cover family debts, they forced out of school to give way to sons, and they are enslaved and kept illiterate because they are women. Recognizing the gravity of violations against women during war times and in the spirit of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 of 2000, the encouragement of the eventual use of the ICT in peacebuilding can have that cathartic effect on the women.

In violent conflicts that have taken place in modern times in Africa, women have suffered much more than their male counterparts because of their ‘biological fate’ or what is called ‘anatomy of destiny’ despite their numeral superiority. Example is Zimbabwe where women constitute 52% of the population (CSO 2006). They have suffered the discomfiture of poverty, drought, hunger, imprisonment and degradation. Yet in Africa, women constitute the majority in the population, yet still minority in decision-making. The inclusion of women in the ICT spheres is necessary for national growth and prosperity (Chamberlain 2002). Yet again they remain marginalized in knowledge, networks, and economic and political matters. Closing and making inaccessible the information management and frameworks to key all stakeholders, particularly women, undermines the ability of ICT to save lives in a crisis situation. Women need to know where they can get information, food, medicines, protection, and networks. ICT can help in this. By inter-operability of information, accessing to it will be made possible to all as digital barriers are pulled down by availability of information. The guarantees that systems, tools and mechanisms can exchange information seamlessly, securely and sustainably, need to be put in place.

Those in power must have the political will to achieve peace and to share the information that can be used in peacebuilding and in meeting everyday life challenges. The politicians in Uganda have recognized the importance of ICT in curbing the rural-urban migration and gave it the attention it deserves. They believed that ICT will not only provide rural employment but will stem the urge to migrate into major towns by the youths. The Ugandan government has been very instrumental in setting up telecentres in rural areas under the Rural Communications Development Fund (RCDF). However, despite this effort, the rural communities are yet to benefit from this movement. There isn’t any Internet or call centres in the rural areas because of lack of electricity (Nabwowe 2008). This is a universal challenge in most of Africa and it is women who have suffered the worst ultimately because should technology reaches near them, it will be grabbed by their male counterparts who have craft competences and literacy to use the technology. Women have little exposure to education to find this technology of any use to them.

Supporting ICT in peacebuilding and conflict transformation is premised on its ability to facilitate ‘virtual collaboration’ (Hattotuwa, ud) or alternative public space for women. Women can meet and discuss issues and solutions collaboratively on the World Wide Web. ICT can augment this socio-political process that explore options for the interest based options despite the fact that virtualisation of peacebuilding is not the final panacea. Peacebuilding still exists within the emotions and problems of the real world, but problems discussed are problems half solved. Women are naturally disposed to discussing intimate issues with their confidantes. ICT can provide this option. Further, ICT for peacebuilding can address gaps in communication within and between multiple tiers of the fabric of society and polity that are party to the peacebuilding process (ibid.). To succeed, ICT should connect progressive elements of the socio-political fabric that under-gird sustainable peacebuilding including, but not limited to women, children, youth, grass-root communities and rural peace activists, at the same time marginalizing extremist and corrosive elements that are detrimental to peacebuilding and conflict transformation.

However, ICTs can only help in crisis management and peacebuilding if they are based on open standards and are interoperable, facilitating use even in difficult conditions and engendering staff by-ins (ICT4Peace Foundation 2008). The peacebuilding processes could be strengthened if organizations, people and regions connect ‘in effective multi-sectoral and peace building networks and provided with active and open knowledge banks – with instant access to effective peace building approaches and case studies’ (Hattotuwa, 2004). The public can participate in the process from the grassroots upwards. Women may be involved.

However, ICT revolution has left out many in Africa given the absence of basic infrastructure, high costs of ICT deployment, unfamiliarity with ICTs, dominance of the English language in Internet content and indeed – lack of demonstrated benefit from ICTs to address ground-level development challenges. Where ICT is provided it is heavily barricaded by masculinity in ways that I now seek to explain. These barriers pose even greater problems for women, who are more likely to: be illiterate; not know English; and lack opportunities for training in computer skills (Gurumurthy 2004). Masculinity is writ large when parents have to choose male children over females to send to school when resources are limited. Domestic responsibilities, cultural restrictions on mobility, lesser economic power as well as lack of relevance of content to their lives, further marginalise them from the information sector.

This paper argues that sharing information provides women with a platform to engender a culture of open information sharing, where the approach to conflict transformation is one that is holistic, inclusive and participatory. By supporting the creation of "shared spaces" the gendered ICT initiative will help the process of conflict transformation.

It’s Gender stupid!

Technology is something people can use, but not the same thing that can be used to influence society. As inanimate, technology has been viewed as gender and value neutral (Gurumurthy 2004) and having the ability to traverse human cultural barriers. Yet this is not always the case. Technology cannot be neutral at all. Skimming through feminist literature reflects that women have been ‘excluded from science, creation, design and use of technology’ (ibid: 4). Women are socialized toward non-technical careers (Huyer and Sikoska 2003). Along with that view it will be patently dangerous to accept that technology works everywhere and provides solutions to development challenges. Effectiveness of technology is dependent on culture under whose frames it was negotiated and can be transformed.

Women are cultural as well and have multiple identities that interact with gender to define their access to technology. To undo unequal gender relations depends largely on understanding the complex gender interactions and the will to transform them for the better. It is easy for a well to do sophisticated woman to have easy access to the Internet, but unthinkable for the feudal rural woman to have that access to the public telephone, yet they are all women who are driven by different socio-historical circumstances that dictate their daily factors of existence. Such realities are the heart of the gender and technology discourse. Gurumurthy (2004) reminds us that men and women from the same social context may not have equal access to technology. For instance, if household assets may have unequal ownership, what guarantees that ICTs can stand unaffected by gender? Simple technology like a radio may be fully masculine. I remember my father had a tiny radio in the 1970s that my mother had no leisure to listen or allowed to join to sit around as men did outside the house. When he left for the city he took it with him or it was safely tucked somewhere waiting for his eventual return. He joined the guerrilla movement for a long time and his radio waited for his long return. By hindsight, it made me think that radios, TVs and computers are male assets and microwaves and cookers are feminine. Yet technology must ease everyone’s life.

Technology has remained historically a male preserve suggesting that the appropriation of the technology by women is a political project that they must fight for with their blood and sweat. Over the decades it has been shown that without explicit attention to gender in policy, gender issues are not considered in implementation (Hafkin 2002:3). Governments argue that they already have gender policies in place and this should obviate the explicit mentioning of gender in every project. To the contrary, evidence shows that in the technological fields ‘policy making ignores the needs, requirements and aspirations of women and girls unless gender requirements are included’ (Marcelle 2002: 39). Without specific attention and action, women and girls are always left out (Hafkin, op cit).

The presence of gender issues rarely extends to information and communication technologies. Unlike fields such as health and education and in economic fields such as agriculture and rural development, where it is rare to find projects that fail to take into account gender issues, ICT sector is one of the last areas to open to a gender perspective. A recent study of hundreds of development projects, either ICT as the major sector or with substantial ICT components, showed that more than one-third of all projects had a high degree of awareness of gender issues, but that the gender-sensitivity carried over to the ICT components is only 10 percent of the projects (Ibid: 4).

Persistent gender specific structural inequalities constitute barriers to women’s access to technology. Such barriers are imbedded in education, tradition, economic inequalities, etc (Huyer and Sikoska 2003). In fact, ICTs are designed and created within the male dominated environments and therefore do not necessarily correspond to specific needs of women (ibid.). This is the “gender digital divide”.

Technological Barricades

ICT has become a potent force in transforming social, political and economic life globally. It is viewed as an ‘intrinsic part of nation building’ (Hattotuwa 2003). It has the potential to carry ‘the new global knowledge based economy’ (Huyer and Sikoska, op cit). ICTs ‘may reshape, reorganize, and restructure working methods’. It has ‘generic advantages of efficiency, information sharing, storage, faster knowledge accumulation, dissemination and can permit new and collaborative work methods’. Further ICT can improve ‘the quality of human life’ and can afford ‘new types of education modalities such as distance learning and online training’ (ibid.). ICT is a tool for transformatory empowerment of women.

Development strategists are encouraging the developing countries to embrace ICTs to avoid social and economic marginalisation (Ahmed et al, ud.). The uneven distribution of the use of information technologies across the societies is called the ‘digital divide’. It reflects a division between the information "haves" and "have-nots" structured along lines of race, ethnic group, class, age, region, and gender; between countries; and globally, between those who have access to abundant information resources and those who do not have this access.

Women within developing countries are in the deepest part of the divide. They are further removed from the information age than are the men whose poverty they share. The gender gap in the digital divide is of increasing concern; if access to and use of these technologies is directly linked to social and economic development, then it is imperative to ensure that women in developing countries understand the significance of these technologies and use them (ibid.). The lack of access to information and communication technologies becomes a significant factor in the further marginalization of women from the economic, social, and political mainstream of their countries and of the world. Without full participation in the use of information technology, women are left without the key to participation in the global world of the twenty-first century (ibid.). Due to these problems it is important to challenge the apparent lack of visibility of women on the ICT, industry and as users of ICT. The starting point is to pull down perceptions that ‘women are less suited to or interested in working with technology’ (Huyer and Sikoska 2003). The truth is that women’s lack of engagement is due to gender inequality than ‘women’s lack of compatibility with technology’.

Women in Africa are generally barricaded out technologically as already intimated. Bisnath (2005) attributes the barriers in the path of women to gender inequality and technological. These are resource endowments, infrastructure, telecommunication policies, skills and educational levels, socio-cultural norms, positions of men and women in production and reproduction, and digital preparedness of the country in question. Huyer and Sikoska (2003) reiterate the same problems always stand in the way of women’s progress: unequal educational access, glass ceilings in industry and research, lack of financial resources resulting from the women themselves or choices made by their families. Unless these barriers are pulled down ostensibly through the struggles of the women themselves, women will remain outside as technological second citizens.

ICT and Peacebuilding in divided societies

Countries coming out of a violent conflict, dilapidated institutions and systems do not have the capacity to manage the complex and disparate interests of multiple stakeholders and tiers. This is more difficult where politics is zero-sum and parochial. Social disconnect occurs due to fears and distrust in what the peace process may mean affecting the building of peace. Peacebuilding is a process beyond conflict viewed by Boutros-Ghali (1995) as ‘comprehensive efforts to identify and support structures which will consolidate peace and advance a sense of confidence and well being among people’. It is hard work demanding everyone’s contribution in disarming, repatriating refugees, restoring institutions, retraining security personnel, monitoring elections, reengineering political institutions for democratic governance, and protecting civil liberties and human rights. This does require more than men’s contribution. Women need to take part because they were involved actively in the conflict as combatants, victims or supporters. Leaving them out is an opportunity cost. Yet the structural stakes are too much against them in Africa, from the physical to social.

Peacebuilding must go beyond sorting ‘political and institutional deficits’ (Llamazares 2005) to healing lives made meaningless by protracted conflicts. Women and youth had their sense of self-respect and esteem violated by the conflict and left scattered across the rural areas as Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and in refugee camps. Cognizant of the geo-location of most women in Africa in rural settings, the use of ICT will enable them to be reached and participate in the peacebuilding without having to relocate them to urban areas. Women in post-conflict societies share common issues that they can creatively transform through ICT platforms. If ICT does not connect them, women remain separated by language, stereotypes, distance and mistrust even when they still share fears and hopes for peaceful futures. If ICT is neutral as suggested by some, then it can catalyse intra- and inter- communal dialogues, create powerful communal people-led foundations that can act as a bulwark against regression. Yet this is not the case when it comes to involving women in real issues of peace and nation building. ICT is an edge of a bayonet set against women where forces of gender are structured against the progress of women.

Peacebuilding has become profoundly multidimensional taking in humanitarian workers, Non Governmental Organisations, United Nations, governments, global financial institutions and from the bottom up, peace activists, women and children. This requires ‘multilevel approaches’ to increase inter-connectedness (Lederach 1997). It cannot assume this comprehensiveness without taking serious account of women. Pulling down of ancient structural forces working against women would make multidimensional peacebuilding possible. ICT can be used to reach out to all forces in peacebuilding including women. ICT can be embraced for its potential in advocacy and dissemination of information and policy alternatives. However, this potential in women can be seriously hampered by the usual litany of ‘lack of funding to purchase equipment or services, lack of skilled staff, little time and interest’ (Hattotuwa 2003:3). But despite the challenges, In Zambia, mobile phone networks are used to advocate women’s rights and in Douala the Internet is available to women entrepreneurs in textile industries. In Uganda ICT and mobile phone business are used as instruments of change by rural women, even professional women in Kenya are fast reaping the ICT benefits.

In some cases the websites available are carelessly designed to be of little use to the rural women. Some lack the content that can capture the attention of these women and in most of the cases they are written in a language that is difficult to understand. A good site is the Centre for Women Research (CENWOR) of Sri Lanka www.cenwor.lk that serves as an information source for the Sri Lankan women. The site is interactive and provides critical information facing women, and action taken by the government and other agencies. It also provides a communication platform transcending all types of boundaries for women and women’s organizations striving to realize women’s rights (ibid.). This platform is effectively eroding the gender barriers pitted against women in the country.

The corpus of conflict resolution literature proffers that it is possible to transcend conflict if parties can be helped to analyse, explore, questions and then reframe their interests and positions (Hottotuwa 2004). ICT can energise the creative dynamics of societies to fully engage with paradigm shifts necessary for visioning a state without protracted conflicts. ICT fertilizes the process of peacebuilding itself (ibid.) by engendering subtle changes in the socio-political relations through interacting protagonists who may not be able to meet face to face in real world through the virtual spaces. INSTRAW virtual seminars demonstrate the potential of ICT in engaging women (Huyer and Sikoska 2003) in e-democracy.

Good ICT for peacebuilding should form the repository for documents, press releases and other information related to the peace process. Hattotuwa (2006) suggests ICT instruments that can be used to embrace all. He identifies community podcasting and Internet radios, Skypecasts, micro-grants for blogging, cheap digital cameras, oral histories, and establishing women, children and youth media houses as instruments that can be profitably used by rural women in Africa for peacebuilding. Community podcasting and internet radios are often required in conflict to capture the voices and hope of people in support of peace. Through ‘new media such as digital audio / video / mobile video / MMS, it is possible to link community driven production of media that addresses local issues. Community radio stations often find that they are prey to legislation that often restricts their freedom to broadcast issues seen as too sensitive by the incumbent government. Internet radio and websites by-pass these restrictions’ (ibid).

Internet radio for grassroots involves those who cannot read or write. Literacy is not a requirement for digital media production that seeks to capture the views of those who may not be able to read and write, but through their life experiences may have valuable insights into the transformation of the conflict and into issues such as reconciliation, transformative justice and co-existence. This technology is sustainable as long as the technology already in the hands of the people (mobile phones) is thoroughly exploited than creating a whole new technology for reaching out to the marginalised women and communities. The ICTs can help to revitalise stagnant dialogues and sustain difficult processes of peacebuilding by providing spaces for sustained dialogue even when Track One processses have run aground (Hattotuwa 2006). Through the internet and radio broadcasts, efforts of peacebuilders are augumented by enhanced channels, avenues and possibilities for communication, information and knowledge sharing, collaboration, empowerement and discussion in virtual spaces, even when physical, realworld meetings are impossible on account of geographical distance or political sensitivities.

The skypecasts allow a large audience to participate, using Skype as well as PSTN phones, in discussions that can be on any topic. The Skype is free, Skype to Skype calls are free and for Skype to work, all that is required is a decent ISDN connection. The rural women may only need to purchase the ISDN connection and the equipment for them to broadcast. Donors need to be motivated to support women’s projects that can enable their voices to be heard. In areas which are not on national electricity grid, solar energy driven with rechargable batteries need to be made available for easy access for women.

Women can exploit their access to these technologies to ‘create Skypecasts on peace from the grassroots itself’ – say a village meeting with a global audience including members from the diaspora chipping in. Such a series of recorded Skypecasts can be a useful way to capture community driven ideas for peace with international and regional voices in support of such ideas. Shared and borderless sources of ideas will not only improve the quantity and quality of information the women may have, but even their self-esteem. The moment women know that someone is listening to their arguments across the globe would empower and engender a new spirit in them.

There is need to provide women micro-credit for blogging. Blogging is an urban phenomenon and there is need to take to the rural areas where majority of women live. If blogging engenders democratic dialogue, it needs to go into places outside of the cities. Blogs that are based in the grassroots itself, and can promote voices of the community, can be a useful way of capturing voices in support of peace. The emphasis here should be on blogs that promote a multiplicity of voices, particularly that which ensures diversity and gender participation.

Women need to be also provided with digital cameras to capture the world around them as they see it along with their thoughts on the challenges of peacebuilding. CD-ROMs based on the lives of an activist in conflict zones, an activist in an urban centre, a web based activist and an activist in the diaspora may be produced as reference material for the people in bureaucratic decision levels to fall back on when crafting nation and peacebuilding policies. The Ugandan CD-ROM project based on the Nakaseke and Buwama telecentres explained by Mijumbi (2002) provides a good starting point for African women. The women who used the CD-ROM have become more confident, knowledgable, prepared to experiment with new approaches and more willing to compare situations for joint solutions (Huyer and Sikoska 2003). Further, women emerged not only with greater knowledge but also with enriched self-esteem.

Oral histories need to be recorded from the people who participated in making that history. However, conflicts often erase voices. Peace needs to preserve voices. However, when voices are captured, only voices of those with power are captured. Poor women’s voices, those who suffered the tragedies of the conflict are left out. Digital media offers unique ways through which voices that are important and most vulnerable, can be captured and promoted, so as to protect valuable ideas for social change even if their authors are killed. Simple recording devices can be given to communities (keeping in mind gender, age, ethnic, economic, class, caste, religious diversity) and capture their voices that support peace.

Women, youth and children need to be supported in setting up their own small media production houses. National regulations may need to be relaxed particularly in Africa where alternative sources of information are viewed by the governments with scepticism. With the help of donor financial support, acquisition of new technology would make setting up the houses pretty inexpensive. Women and youth media bring very different perspective to peace and conflict reporting as well as general programming. Children and youth have much more access to political leaders than do adults and can get away with asking some seemingly simple but precise questions that go to the heart of peacebuilding.

Innovative websites need to be created in vernacular languages to reach women who are often not educated in foreign languages like English and French. Since most women are impeded by lack of education to engage effectively with ICTs, there is need to ensure ‘soft access’ to less literate and educated by developing appropriate software applications and content. For example, Web 2.0 mash-ups that tell the narratives of those involved in peacebuilding through the use of Flick photos, audio / podcasts, GIS (Google Maps), blogs, mobile video, MMS or SMS (like myspace.com, but geared for peacebuilding) can be used. Projects such as www.witness.org use digital media to record human rights violations. When all these are made accessible to women great strides may be made in solid peacebuilding in Africa. There is no need to continually blame the victims by feeling ‘that women are reluctant to invest either their time in learning how to use the technology or financial resources needed for access’ (Huyer and Sikoska 2003). Women have been severely battered by the weight of masculinity to take further blame for their problems. They have been frequently diasdvantaged by culture and concomitantly by inequitable access to all kinds of resources.

There are challenges for ICT in peacebuilding in spite of its phenomenal potential to augment the interventions of individual women in many areas of peacebuilding process like rebuilding trust between communities, creating dialogues within and between ethnic groups, giving voice to the marginalized women and youth, and enabling grassroot participation in the dialogues related to peacebuilding. What discourages wide and regular use of ICT are the high capital and recurrent costs which most of the women and their organizations cannot meet. This dovetails into the problem of access. By elbowing women out of ICT through bad policies, this dis-empowers them from having a voice in the peacebuilding processes when in fact, ICT must be able to facilitate the building of social capital that can empower women and ‘local communities to grapple with conflicts in a non-violent way’ (Hattotuwa 2004).

The other challenge is the trust that people can conduct critical discussion in virtual spaces while being assured of confidentiality of shared content. This is important in countries where terror and violence is heavily embedded and people cannot afford to trust the next person. How would it be possible to trust a worldly technology that one does not control? Next is sustainability of the ICT in a world where equipment can be novel today and obsolete the next day. The question of compatibility is important as well. There are the issues of breakdowns and back up the problems? of viral invasions and proper software to clean may be discouraging challenges for women who are financially weak due to structural gender imperatives. Further challenges like vernacular content/interface/questions of accessibility, connectivity/infrastructure/ bandwidth, lack of IT knowledge and lack of finance to buy the hardware and software remain prominent. While some of the challenges may be addressed by donor funds, the question of sustainability needs more than donor support but the strengthened arm of the beneficiary.

Finally, the lack of technological ownership by women is a huge challenge to be overcome if women are going to mean much in peacebuilding. A sense of ownership is an important precondition for overcoming the barriers to women’s access to and use of ICTs. To achieve this fullness of ownership, ‘it is important that ICT tools are tailored to the specific needs of women’ (Huyer and Sikoska 2003) and this feat is overcome by serious advocacy by the women themselves for other women. Women need to curve inroads into the realm of policy making to influence the ICT policy making for a gender perspective.

References

Ahmed A, Islam D, Hasan A. R and Rahman JR (undated) Measuring The Impact Of ICT On Women In Bangladesh, unpublished.
Boutros-Ghali B (1995) Supplement to the Agenda for Peace: Position Paper to the Secretary General on the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations; New York, United Nations
Central Statistical Office (2006) Census Report, Government Printers, Harare
Chamberlain L (2002) Considerations for Gender Advocacy vis-à-vis ICT Policy and Strategy, United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women Expert Group Meeting on “Information and Communication Technologies and their impact on and use as an instrument for the advancement and empowerment of women” Seoul, Republic of Korea, 11-14 November 2002
Gurumurthy A (2004) Gender and ICT: Overview Report for Institute for Development Studies, September 2004
Hafkin N (2002) Gender Issues in ICT Policies in Developing Countries: An Overview United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women Expert Group Meeting on “Information and Communication Technologies and their impact on and use as an instrument for the advancement and empowerment of women” Seoul, Republic of Korea, 11-14 November 2002
Hattotuwa S (ud) CSCW in the North-Eastern Province in Sri Lanka, University of Queensland
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KM & Governance

Urban Agriculture: A Response to Food Insecurity?

KMAadmin — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 02:32:00 -0600

Author: Nyumbaiza Tambwe

Abstract

The United Nations Population Fund-State of World 2007 considers 2008 as the year of new departure in human history in that half of the globe’s population (3.3 billion) will be living in the towns and cities. The report outlines the fact that most of these urbanites will be in developing countries and they will be poor. In Africa and Asia particularly, urban population is expected to double between 2000 and 2030. While Asia’s urban population is projected to increase from 1.36 billion to 2.64 billion, Africa’s urban population is expected to increase from 294 million to 742 million.

As a consequence, satisfying urban dwellers’ basic needs in terms of health, food, education, housing, water and other needs could be challenging. Even though cities and towns benefit from most of the local and foreign investments, urban areas experience high rates of unemployment, food insecurity and poverty, which continue to exacerbate.

To alleviate some of these problems, a large number of urban residents in developing countries, particularly in Africa, resort to urban agriculture for food, income generation, and employment. City dwellers convert open spaces (backyards, parks, garbage deposits, power lines and railways, roads, and peri-urban zones) into gardens and farms as a means of reducing urban poverty.

Taking Lubumbashi city (the second largest city of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as case study, this paper seeks to explore the potentiality of urban agriculture as source of income and food. The paper uses a sustainable livelihoods approach based on alternative theories of development. The livelihood perspective argues that individuals and households diversify assets, incomes, and activities in response to the pressure of push and pull factors. In the context of economic crisis, urban agriculture may become a response to food insecurity if economically viable, and adaptative to urban dynamics and capable of recovering from shocks and trends.

Specifically, the paper analyzes three categories of farming households and comes to the conclusion that agriculture within and around Lubumbashi city is more of a survival strategy than an entrepreneurial one for the majority of farming households. Only less than a quarter of selected farmers have been able to move out of food insecurity and poverty. The majority of farmers are food secure just for a short period of time (that is at the harvest time, three to four months). The paper shows that farmers who practice urban agriculture as their primary activity may become food secure if supported by the state and development agencies. Poverty that characterizes the majority of farmers, competition for land, and rapid population growth constitute a real threat to the expansion of agricultural activities within and around the city.

Data has been collected by means of semi-structured interviews, in-depth questions, observation and informal conversation, as well as primary and secondary sources. One hundred farming households have been selected and interviewed between November 2004 and March 2005. The analysis of the collected data required the use of SPSS for quantitative data and the interpretation for those of qualitative nature.

Introduction

The paper attempts to establish a relationship between urban agriculture and food security. In other words, it seeks to examine the impact of agricultural activities taking place within and around the city of Lubumbashi on household level. The paper uses the sustainable livelihood approach based on the theories of alternative development. Instead of identifying all strategies used in urban areas, the study focuses on urban agriculture because of its potential as source of food and income. On methodological level, using the non-probability sampling, the city was divided into its seven administrative wards. As each ward is administratively divided into areas, each area was taken as reference for the selection of informants. A quota sampling of two farmers was given to each area regardless the fact that the number of urban farmers or gardeners was unknown. By selecting at least two farmers in each area of each ward, this means that all Lubumbashi wards were representative in the sample. Also most of the socio-economic categories of people living in this city were represented. Gender as well as a third criterion of selection completed the two-mentioned criteria. More than a half farmers selected was women. With 41 administrative areas, a total of 100 farming households were selected.

The body of this paper is structured as into five main sections. The first section explains why the city of Lubumbashi has been chosen as a study site. Secondly, a brief review of the anthropological literature on household strategies is presented with a focus on the household economy. Alternative development literature considers the household as the starting point in the process of production and consumption. The third section as a practical section examines two major components of food security to see whether urban agriculture permits food to be available and accessible to farming households living in the city of Lubumbashi. The section deals with three farming households representing the major categories of farmers. Fourthly, the paper identifies various types of strategies used by individuals and households to address the question of food insecurity in the city of Lubumbashi. Finally the fifth section emphasizes the role played by women in the household as caregivers and managers. Here, particular attention is drawn on the reinforcement of women’s role in the household and the burden it implies.

Lubumbashi city: study site

The choice of Lubumbashi as a study area is due to its weight in the economy of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Commonly called the capital of copper, Lubumbashi lived for almost one century at the rhythm of the giant mining company, Gécamines. The majority of companies in Katanga province functioned on the orbit of Gécamines. This was the case for example of the railway company (Société Nationale de Chemin de Fer du Congo) which was created to transport Gécamines minerals, from Katanga to Angola and from Katanga to Tanzania.

Considering the dominant economic weight of Gécamines, its collapse in the 1990s deepened the economic crisis in the country. It must be added that Gécamines fall affected primarily its labour force: more than 11 000 workers were retrenched. Secondly, this resulted in the fall of all companies operated on its orbit.

The post-Gécamines era is characterized by a high rate of unemployment in Lubumbashi, low income for people working in government and parastatal services and the rise of informal economic activities. The rapid population growth and poverty in the city worsen the living conditions of urbanites. Therefore, there is a necessity to find out how people cope with the economic crisis in the context of a state that is unable to play its traditional role (public services, protection of citizens, and so on). Instead of identifying all the strategies used by the poor as recommend the sustainable livelihood approach, the attention in this paper focuses on the one that emerges “urban agriculture”.

The household: economy and polity

By considering the emergent urban agriculture, this paper opts for the theories of alternative development, which constitutes a move away from large-scale model of development theories. The reason is that the Congolese state as well as its market economy is too fragile, too weak to be taken as major factors from which development may be originated. Large-scale theories consider the state and the market economy as the key players in development. In his analysis of state in the developing countries, Evans (1989:562) classifies Zaire (former name of the Democratic Republic of Congo) in the category of predatory states. The major characteristic of predatory state is that state administration lacks coherence and efficiency. This constitutes a handicap to the promotion of economic and social development. Predatory state is politically dominated and economically exploited by small political power elite. National resources are abusively used by the clic (team of major political players) in power for their own interests. To quote Evans (1989: 569-70):

“The Zairian state apparatus have extracted vast personal fortunes from the revenues generated by exporting the country’s impressive mineral wealth. During the first two decades of Mobutu’s rule, Zaire’s gross national product per capita has declined at an annual rate of 2.1% (World Bank, 1988), gradually moving the country toward the very bottom of the world hierarchy of nations and leaving its population in misery as bad as or worse than they suffered under the Belgian colonial regime”.
The launch of a multiparty system in mid-nineties did not improve the situation. This coincided with the collapse of the giant mining firm (Gécamines), the collapse of state services, mal-governance and corruption. While the average income reached its highest level in the 1973 at US $ 1.31 percent per day, by 1998, that figure was down to US $ 0.30, an average drop of over three percent per year (UNDP, 2006:7).

The majority of urban poor find refuge in the household. Contrary to the neoclassical economy, which considers the household only as a unit of consumption; the household in the alternative development literature is regarded at the same time as a unit of production and a unit of consumption. As unit of production, the household is involved in market and non-market income-producing activities. Based on Polanyi (1977), Friedmann (1992), and Martinussen (1997), the most important socio-economic institution of the civil society is the household.

Additionally, the household is also a polity. As a polity, the household is a unit that makes decisions on a daily basis concerning the use of household resources and other matters that affect their lives and livelihoods. As acknowledged by Freidmann (1992:46), conflicts may arise within the household over questions of power-who does what kind of work, who controls what portion of whose income, whose voice should count in the last instance in decisions.

The Friedmann’s model of household economy distinguishes three major sources of monetary income in the household: (i) formal work, (ii) informal work, and net family transfers. Similarly with regard to the sources of income, the author distinguishes three kinds of expenditures, namely (i) consumption proper (food, clothing), (ii) investment in household durables (including housing, furnishing), and (iii) investment in the capacities and skills. Finally, Freidmann’s model envisages that the state provides social services such as health care, land donations, subsidized bus transportation, school lunch programs, and police protection.

Components of food security

According to Rukuni and Eicher (1988), the concepts of food policy and food security came of age in the early 1980s. It was firstly defined as “the ability of food deficit countries to meet target consumption levels on a year-to-year basis” (Alberto 1981 cited in Rukuni and Eicher 1988:133). In 1986, the World Bank and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) formulated the most accepted definition of food security. According to this definition, there is food security when all people, at all times, have access to sufficient and safe food preferences for an active and healthy life. Various levels of food security have been distinguished: national, regional, and local. For example, a food secure household is a household in which all members have access at all times to enough food for an active and healthy life.

Two major components of food security appear in the above definition: food availability and food affordability. Availability of food means that sufficient safe and nutritious food is either domestically produced or imported from the international market. Food may be available on the market, but it must be accessible to the population. For food to be accessible, individuals and households must be able to afford the food prices on the market.

The opposite of food security is food insecurity. Food insecurity is described as a condition in which people and households lack basic food intake to provide them with the energy and nutrients for fully productive lives. Food insecurity becomes chronic from the moment it translates into a high degree of vulnerability to undernourishment and this is related to poverty, existing mainly in poor countries.

Domestic Food Production

In 2002-2003, Lubumbashi residents produced only 13,214 tons of maize, which represented just 4.8 per cent of their real needs (see table1.1). In fact, Lubumbashi city at that time needed 274,340 tons of maize to feed 1.2 million inhabitants. Although the provincial maize production estimated 369,078 tons (see Annual Report of the Provincial Agricultural Service, 2002-2003) may cover the demand in maize in the city, it must be pointed out that Lubumbashi population constitutes only one-quarter of Katanga province’s population (5 million inhabitants). Theoretically, Lubumbashi dwellers alone consume 74.3 per cent of the total maize produced in the province. Actually, the maize production is shared by Lubumbashi population and the rest of Katanga population. More than that, the neighbouring provinces are also served from the same production. That is the reason why Lubumbashi city imports maize from Zambia, South Africa and Tanzania to compensate the emptiness left.

According to the United Nations Development Program (2006:3), 80 per cent of Congolese live under conditions of extreme poverty (less than US$ 1 a day), 71 per cent suffer from food insecurity, 57 per cent have no access to safe drinking water, and 54 per cent of Congolese cannot benefit from basic health services. From the above data, it can be deduced that food insecurity in the city of Lubumbashi results more from people’s lack of access to food than from lack of available food. With a salary of US$ 10 earned in the public sector (by a nurse in public hospital, a teacher at the primary school or a police officer), whatever the quantity of food produced and its availability on the market, this category of population cannot afford it. At the period the interviews were carried out, a bag of maize (50kg) cost at least US$ 40. Low purchasing power or lack of money to buy the available expensive food makes the majority of Lubumbashi residents unable to obtain sufficient, nutritious, personally acceptable food through normal food channels. This confirms the argument developed by a number of researchers such as Reutlinger and Selowsky (1976), Sen (1991) and Rukuni and Eicher (1988) that poverty is the major cause of famine and hunger in the world. While Reutlinger and Selowsky challenged the assumption that higher rates of economic growth, food production, and market forces bring about an improvement in nutrition in the Third World within an acceptable time frame, Sen challenged the prevailing view that famine was caused primarily by a food production shortfall. As a result, people resorted to food production as one of the strategies to supplement their low income and to generate income. While for the majority of Lubumbashi farmers, urban agriculture is just a secondary activity, for others it is a primary activity and for a very small category of farmers, urban agriculture is a source of enrichment.

Urban agriculture as a secondary source of food: the Ngoy household

Ngoy household represents the majority of farming households interviewed (77%) for which urban agriculture is a secondary activity. Therefore, food production is a supplement to the low income earned by the household. The urban poor practice several activities for their survival. And urban agriculture is one among many others.

Married and a father of six children, Ngoy is a 49-year-old man, and is working at a Chinese’s store. His wife (Kakazi Ngoy) sells vegetables on the market which are grown on the backyard garden. With US$ 15 earned per month, Ngoy complained to be unable to feed his family:

Low household income is one of the reasons invocated by urban poor to explain their engagement in food production. To supplement the low salary earned and to reduce the severity of economic crisis, Ngoy encouraged his wife in 1993 to use the vacant land surrounding their yard in order to grow vegetables.

Our yard does not have enough space to grow vegetables. But around the yard, there is vacant land to be used for agricultural activities. So, I asked my wife to use it for the growing of some vegetables. Our neighbours have been doing so for a long time. She accepted because it was the only way to survive.

As it appears, low income households exploit any vacant land in the city in order to produce food. Since vegetables are grown around the yard, Ngoy household does not buy vegetables anymore. By contrast, instead of buying bitoyo (local salted fishes) and ndakala (small fried fish) as main condiment in the household, Ngoy household has adopted vegetables as the main accompaniment. By replacing fish with vegetables, the Ngoy household standard of life is declining. Vegetables are generally consumed to accompany fish and not as a substitute.

By alternating the growing of vegetables all over the year, farming households aim to secure their members from bad harvest due to a climate change or bad harvest of one crop. Alternating crops is like diversifying crops on one garden or farm. The advantage diversification of crops is to reduce the risk of shortage as a downturn in one activity is offset to some extent by the continued production of others.” Explaining the reason why his wife alternates the growing of vegetables on the same garden, Ngoy stated:
My wife grows amaranth, sweet potato leaves and marrow leaves in rain season primarily for home consumption, but those (cabbages) grown on dry season are primarily sold even though the family consumes part of the produce.

Ngoy household as well as many other households in this category are self-sufficient in vegetables. They have different kinds of vegetables they cultivate. When there is a surplus of production, the surplus is sold.

My wife sells vegetables on the market. Sometimes people come to our house to buy vegetables. When she sells well, the family can afford two maize meals a day. Generally, we eat once a day.

The growing of vegetables or their selling does not solve the problem of malnutrition. Instead of sleeping on an empty stomach, urban farming allows poor household members to get one or two more meals a day. Despite the contribution of vegetables in the household’s diet, Ngoy acknowledged that his household’s living conditions have not yet improved.
In summary, households falling into Ngoy household’s category undertake agricultural activities to supplement their low income by using various strategies namely reduction of expenditures on food, reduction of the quantity and quality of meals, suppression of some kinds of meals (meat, potatoes, rice, etc) and increasing the number of meals during the harvest period. Unfortunately, the majority of these strategies are survivalist.

Urban agriculture as a primary source of food: the Kilambe household

Kilambe household represents the 3 per cent of households selected, which were able through urban agriculture to feed their members for the entire year, and also the 6 per cent who did so for only six months. It must be added that the majority of the households interviewed were food secure only during the harvest period (3 to 4 months). Households falling into this household category are those who practice urban agriculture as the primary activity for food production and income generation.
Kashika Kilambe has been living in the city of Lubumbashi since 1970. She is a 55 year-old-woman. She is a married woman and has got seven children of whom two are already married. But two of her husband’s nephews and her own sisters live with them. Her husband worked at TabaCongo, but has been retrenched in 1999. Since then, she has become the main food producer and supplier of the family. Like many other households, Kilambe explained the reason of her engagement in food production:

I decided to grow vegetables on the back of our yard in 1993. There was food shortage in the city, particularly maize flour. The scarcity of maize flour was coupled with the scarcity of money because of the monetary reform, which occurred that year. It became tough to feed our big family. I undertook to grow vegetables on the backyard to get fresh vegetables (sweet potato leaves and amaranth, marrow leaves and, I even sold part of my vegetables.

The growing of vegetables in the backyard permitted the household to reduce the severity of food insecurity and, at the same time to reduce the expenditures on foodstuffs. But urban agriculture remained for this household a secondary source of food for as long as Kilambe’s husband was still working at TabaCongo. But from 1999 when Kilambe’s husband lost his job, urban agriculture became the principal source of food for the household. The backyard garden’s experience helped Kilambe to grow maize crop at the periphery of the city. She stated:

A friend of mine who was growing maize crop along Lubumbashi-Kipushi road encouraged me to start growing maize. I decided to do so. My experience in growing vegetables in the backyard was helpful for the growing of maize. The first year I produced only 3 sacs of maize (50kg). The following year (2001) with the help of my husband and children, the production tripled. I realized (9 sacs). Now I am able to produce 12 sacs of maize.

What started as a survivalist activity (on the backyard) has transformed into a real economic activity which produces not only food but also income, and therefore implicated much more members of the household (husband and children). Also, as much more space was needed for the extension of the agricultural activities, the periphery of the city offered the space needed for maize farming. While the main objective remained feeding the household members, the quantity of maize produced (12 sacs) allowed Kilambe to sell part of her produce.

Of 12 sacks of maize I produce annually, the family consumes 8 sacs because the four others are sold in order to generate an income which helps to meet the rest of family needs. It is not enough but it is much better than nothing. My family members can afford two maize meals a day.

Although the growing of maize brought a lot of benefits in terms of food and money, the Kilambe household did not abandon cultivating vegetables. On the contrary, the household rotated different types of vegetables, such as amaranth, cassava, marrow and sweet potato leaves and cabbages. Diversification and rotation of crops allow poor households to get food all over the year and to reduce risks of one crop production. As she acknowledged:

As you can see, I grow maize along Kipushi road and vegetables on backyard. In rain season I grow amaranth, sweet potato, marrow and cassava leaves and in dry season I cultivate cabbages.

The expenditures on foodstuffs have been drastically reduced, which means that as the household allocates less money to buy foodstuffs, the surplus money from food selling can be allocated to other needs of the household.

My family does not anymore buy maize flour and vegetables on the market. Sometimes I don’t know how much they cost on the market.

Even though Kilambe recognizes that her maize farm supplies the essential of food to the household, this is not enough to feed every member of the household at all times. Instead of three meals per day (breakfast, lunch and dinner), for example, the Kilambe household members get two meals a day.

To sum up, Kilambe household grows food crops as a strategy to fight against hunger. In order to increase the production, the household incorporates all members at a certain age, diversifies and rotates crops. Food production in the Kilambe household has reduced expenditures on food stuffs, but what is produced is not yet enough to cover all household needs. Additionally, household means being limited, therefore, a survival urban agriculture is the dominant type of farming practiced in this category of households.

Urban agriculture as source of enrichment: the Kadony household

Kadony household is part of the very rare farming households primarily engaged in food cultivation for commercial reasons. This household is an example of success in the practice of cultivation which started in the city to be extended later on in the rural areas.

Kadony is a senior lecturer at the University of Lubumbashi. He is married and a father of several children, Kadony engaged in the growing of maize, peanut, cabbages, onion and sweet potatoes for several reasons, namely; to supplement the low salary earned, to supply food to his household, and to finance his doctoral research. As he stated:

I have been cultivating since 1989. I started growing maize plant and later on peanut for home consumption. In 1989, I produced 8 bags of maize.

Considering the high level of profitability of peanut crop, Kadony household decided to produce much more. The result was far above his expectation.

1992-93, I produced 60 bags of peanut. After the selling, I was able to buy a return air ticket (Lubumbashi-Kinshasa) to meet with my supervisor for the follow-up of my thesis. I was in need of it. The purchase of a return air ticket and my stay in Kinshasa cost almost $US 2000. My salary at that time was tenfold less.

After the academic issue was solved, Kadony household decided later on to buy a second hand car as a unit of production for the household. The $US 3000 used to buy the car came from the selling of peanuts. Since then, the household does not experience food shortage.

In the three sources of household expenditures envisaged in Freidmann’s (1992) model of household economy, the buying of a car is a durable investment even though it is not directly affected to commercial use. In a case of crisis, the car may be sold and the money may help the household to move out the crisis. The acquisition of a second hand car increased the social status of the Kadony household.

In 1998, I bought a second hand car for commercial purpose. It cost $US 3000. Since then, my salary has become a secondary source of income in the household. It may be paid or not, I always have enough food to feed my household members and enough money to cover other needs of the household.

By buying a car for commercial purpose from the selling of agricultural products, the Kadony household like many households in this category increased the productivity of his farms by expanding the activities and hiring workers.

The food secure Kadony household shows that urban agriculture can move a household out of poverty, and more importantly this activity can become a sustainable livelihood strategy. However, very few households may be included in the category of the Kadony household.

To show how important urban agriculture is for his household, senior lecturer Kadony has been expending his agricultural activities outside the city.

It can be deduced from the above statement that the sustainability of urban agriculture is mostly dependent on the availability of land as agricultural activities expand, and also on material and financial support from government and development agencies.

Household strategies to food insecurity

From the three categories of households, it must be retained that urban households respond to food insecurity by using various ways. These vary from incorporating household members into food production to reducing the quantity and quality of meals. The multiplicity of strategies reduces the impact of food insecurity on the household. The table that follows illustrates both viable and survivalist as household strategies to food insecurity.

Table 1: Summary of household strategies to food insecurity

Viable strategies

Survivalist strategies

-Incorporating household members

-Diversifying food crops

-Rotating vegetable crops

-Attributing specific role to each crop (food, income generation)

-Eating sweet potatoes as food bridge

-Reducing the quantity and number of meals per day

-Suppressing some types of meals (meat, rice)

-Replacement of staple food (maize meal) by sweet potatoes

-Making vegetables as main condiments

-Elimination of some foods (meat, fish, etc)

-Eating late at night

Source: author’s fieldwork 2004/2005

Source: author’s fieldwork 2004/2005

The above table indicates that farming households use their members with an objective to increase the production. Kilambe for example, recognized that the engagement of her husband and children was helpful to triple the maize production from 3 bags (50kg) in 2000 to 9 bags in 2001. The increase permitted the household members to get two maize meals a day. Households often move from backyard to the periphery of the city or use land in the surrounding villages to expand their activities. The size of a plot determines the production.

The diversification of crops as well as the rotation system was practiced. On one plot two or three crops were grown. Maize crop might be the main crop, but was often associated with two other crops such as, beans and vegetables or peanut and vegetables. In the rainy season, households grew specific types of vegetables such as amaranth, beans, cassava leaves and sweet potato leaves, while in the dry season cabbages were the most cultivated.

Also, crop like peanut was specifically grown for commercial reasons irrespective of the quantity produced while vegetables were primarily grown for home consumption, but could also be sold. Maize crop was produced for both reasons: home consumption and income generation. Sweet potatoes played a major role in Lubumbashi residents’ diet during the period of food shortage.

On nutrition level, households were able to eat two to three maize meals a day during the harvest period. Three to four months later, only one maize meal was affordable by the majority of the households interviewed. When the household could not afford more than one meal a day, the time to eat the only one meal was late in the night (around 22:00).

The predominance of vegetables in Lubumbashi residents’ diet as the principal condiment was also one of the strategies used to reduce the impact of food shortage and high food prices in the household. As already pointed out, some foods (meat, fish, chips and omelet) were eaten only at special events (birth, marriage and death). The elimination of these expensive foods allowed poor households to survive.

To sum up, while some household strategies are viable and therefore sustainable (incorporating all household members, diversifying crops), others are just survival for (food reduction, replacement of maize meal by other kinds of meals such as beans and sweet potatoes, and the predominance of vegetables as substitute to fish and meat.

Gender in food and income generation

In the context of economic crisis characterized by growing unemployment and low income in public administration, the household plays a major role in the supply of food and income generation. The dominant presence of women in urban agriculture can be explained by the fact that women are often considered as caregivers and managers of household.

In the absence of salary or with a very little salary earned by their husbands (see Kilambe and Ngoy households), women are the ones who are supposed to generate an income and provide food to their households. They undertake, therefore, multiple tasks from planting food crops to selling agricultural products on the market. As stated by Van Esterik (1999), women’s sense of self is based on their ability to feed their families. This is to say that women loose their power and identity when they lack access to food.

Instead of losing their power and identity as caregivers and managers of the household, women are ready, in addition to their domestic chores, to undertake agricultural activities to supply food to their household members and to generate income. Two selected women of Bongonga area gave the following reasons to justify their engagement if food production:

My husband has lost his job, the only source of income. What you want me to do? I have to do something. If not, my children will die. I have to grow vegetables: beans, potatoes and marrow and sell part of the production.

With only $US 10 my husband earns per month, I cannot feed my family. I have got 8 children. I also keep nephews at home. To supplement my husband’s salary, I keep chickens and plant vegetables and maize.

Most of the women interviewed have recognized that their production was not enough to cover all the food needs in the household. Nevertheless, in the situation of food shortage, the only one maize meal consumed on daily basis is a sacrifice made by a woman. Whatever the quality or quantity of food consumed in the household, a meal means not only food, but also capacity for a woman to keep her family members alive and to prevent them from begging.

We generally eat once a day. Sometimes twice a day, but I am proud because I am the one who provides the one meal in the household. I cannot allow my children to become beggars (Interview 63, February 2005).

By participating to the production of food in the household and becoming the central producer and provider, the woman reinforces her status in the household. In the meantime, men are losing their position of head of the household. Women tend to decide on the way production must be used.

I don’t expect clothes from my husband. If he is not able to provide food to the family, you think he can be able to buy clothes. I buy clothes during the harvest time when I sell part of my maize (Interview 25, January 2005).

Women reinforce their status in the household not only by supplying food, but also by deciding on the allocation of the household income. As noted before, the reinforcement of women’s status in the household undermines men’s status. Sometimes this brings conflict in the household where men like to keep their position as head of the household. One of the respondents said;

Since I have been cultivating, I manage the household income. But my husband accuses me of not consulting him as head of the family. He does not know my priorities. When I get money, I like to solve the most important problems in the household for example, food, rent, and water and electricity bills. Sometimes he understands, sometimes he does not (Interview 79, November 2004).

Change of women’s status in a context of patriarchal system can be source of conflict. Since women have been having more power to decide, men feel powerless and tend to leave all the burden of the household to their wives. They explain their behaviour by the fact women want to rule the household, so they have to take all the responsibilities. A teacher did complain as follows:

I am a teacher. I earn $US 20 per month if I add the $US 10 I monthly receive as parents’ contribution to school. I supply food to family just for one week. The family depends on my wife’s activities. She grows vegetables and sells on the market. The problem is that she is the decision-maker in the household. I don’t see my place anymore. She has even forgotten the period I was supplied everything in the family, when I was working at Forrest Company (Interview 62, March 2005).

The significant contribution of women to reduce food insecurity at household level has the advantage to reinforce their status, but on the other hand it constitutes a burden on their shoulders. Loss of control over household income makes men powerless. As a consequence, family pressure is now more directed towards women than towards men. As one woman supported by World Vision International/Congo declared:

From 8:00 am to 4:00 pm I am at my maize farm. When I come back home, I have to cook and clean the house. I don’t have a domestic worker. I do everything myself. That is the reason why I am always tired. The only days I have a rest are Saturdays and Sundays.

Urban farming has become more central for the survival of households that some women work so hard they even sacrifice their own health. Petit’s survey (2001) conducted in the city of Lubumbashi showed that women’s contribution to the household income was very insignificant when the giant mining company (Gécamines) and other companies operating in its orbit were paying their employees. Unfortunately, the more economic crisis deepened the more women’s contribution to their household becomes central survival means particularly in food supply and income generation.

Conclusion

In the context of economic crisis with a weak state, the household economy is already becoming a response to food insecurity. The practice of cultivation in the city of Lubumbashi has rendered almost all selected households self-sufficient in vegetables through the techniques of diversification, rotation, and alternation all along the year.

Temporary food security (harvest) has also been observed concerning maize. During that period, two to three maize meals a day become possible. But it must be added that only very few households became food secure for the entire year (the Kadony household). The case of Kilambe household is in between the Kadony and the Ngoy household. While through urban agriculture Kadony household succeeded to move out of food insecurity, the Ngoy standard of life continued declining. Kilambe did not necessarily move out of food insecurity, but his condition was not declining. This category of households may become food secure and move out of poverty if a financial support is given to them. Therefore, the role of the government and development agencies is crucial. The case of urban agriculture in Great Gaborone (Botwsana), which through grants received from the government became an entrepreneurial activity, is illustrative (Hovorka, 2004).

References

Annual report of the agricultural service/Katanga province: 2002-2003 Denzin, Norman K. (1978). Research act: A theoretical introduction to sociological Methods. New york: Mcgraw-Lill
Feige, Edgar (1989). The underground economies: Tax evasion and information distortion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Fobre, Nancy (1994). Who pays for the kids? Gender and the structures of constraint. London: Routledge
Friedmann, John (1992). Empowerment: The politics of alternative development. Cambridge, Massachussets: Blakwell
Hill, M.R. (1993). Archival strategies and techniques: Qualitative research Methods Series. London: Sage
Hovorka, A.J. (2004). “Entrepreneurial opportunities in Botswana: (Re) shaping Urban Agriculture discourse”. In Journal of Contemporary African Studies, volume 22, number 3
Leedy, P.D. (1989). Practical research: Planning and design. Fifth edition. London:MacMillan
MacGaffey, Janet et all. (1991). The real economy of Zaire: The Contribution of Smuggling and Other Unofficial Activities to National Wealth. London: James Currey
Martinussen, John (1997). Society, State and market: a Guide to Competing Theories of Development. London: Zen
Petit, Pierre (2001). Lubumbashi 2000: La situation des ménages dans une économie de précarité. Lubumbashi: Observatoire de changement urbain
Polanyi, Karl (1977). The Livelihood of Man. New York: Academic
Reutlinger, Shlomo and Selowsky, Marcelo (1976). Malnutrition and poverty. [s.I]: Johns Hopkins University Press
Sawio, J.C. (1994). Who are the farmers of Dar es Salaam? In Cities Feeding People: an Examination of Urban Agriculture in East Africa. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre.
Sen, Amartya Kumar (1991). Poverty and famines: An essay on entitlement and deprivation. Oxford: Clarendon Press
United Nations Development Program (2006). Case study: The Democratic Republic of Congo World Bank (1986)

KM & Social Challenges

Knowledge Management in Fractured Societies: Women’s Initiatives

KMAadmin — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:14:23 -0600

Author : Dr Michele Ruiters (DBSA, Research Unit)

Abstract

Post-conflict societies experience a breakdown in institutions and relations between citizens. Most conflicts in Africa have occurred due to identity politics or politicized ethnicities; resource conflicts; and struggles for political power and representation in formal institutions. Whatever the reason for the outbreak of the conflict, social and political conflicts disadvantage women and children the most. Institutions fail, social networks are torn and governments struggle to disseminate information about services and programmes aimed at repairing the society and the relationships therein. All communication and management of information becomes problematic. In periods characterized as post-conflict, a number of women’s groups have taken the initiative to address issues of knowledge management to ensure that women receive the necessary information they require to conduct their everyday lives, especially in relation to their interaction with the government and social welfare services. Women’s organizations have employed a range of methods to inform women of services and to empower women to work within their communities in effective ways that support social, political and economic initiatives. This paper will firstly provide a theoretical foundation on the politics of knowledge production and management. It also conducts internet research on three women’s organizations in three post-conflict countries that are at various stages of reconstruction, namely, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Liberia. The paper finally will evaluate the ICT structures and networks that these women’s organizations have created, evaluate their levels of success and determine whether there is a distinct model that could be generalized across the region.

We the representatives of the world, assembled in Geneva from 10-12 December 2003 for the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, declare our common desire and commitment to build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life, premised on the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and respecting fully and upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.1

Introduction

The dictum ‘knowledge is power’ proves to be very apt when knowledge and gender intersect. In reference to this paper, access to and interaction with knowledge creates power. Despite international instruments that protect women’s access to the formal economy, political sphere and other public spaces, often the majority of women find themselves excluded from knowledge production processes because they either work from home; are employed in the informal market as self-employed traders; or are employed in low level jobs in the formal economy. Also, women are being left behind in the race for digital information. The gendered digital divide shows that more women than men have little or no access to information on the internet, world-wide web or through other electronic means. As globalisation connects everyone, women especially are being left behind as the digital divide increases between countries and people who have access to new media and technologies. Consequently, access to knowledge and information becomes a political issue especially since it involves exclusion from the public sphere.
This paper examines the concept of knowledge management through a gendered lens and traces the processes of creating and managing knowledge for women’s empowerment across three case studies from Zimbabwe, Uganda and Liberia respectively and assesses knowledge management tools in relation to their broad objective of empowering women. Most women’s organisations in Africa work on empowering women in their societies to become more engaged in development, political decision-making processes and to become economically self-sufficient. Their mandate is to communicate information that would contribute towards changes in women’s lived experiences and in so doing, change social practices to allow women to participate as equals. Information management and dissemination are therefore key strategies employed by these organisations in their attempts to inform their constituencies and to improve women’s socio-economic status. In post-conflict situations the social fabric of the country has been torn and networks destroyed. Women’s organisations in these fragile contexts then have to fight against hyper-sexism resulting in increased political, economic and physical insecurity for women. Women are empowered through receiving information that informs their decisions and involvement with larger social, political and economic processes.

Knowledge and Power

For decades, feminisms have argued for a particular standpoint grounded in women’s experiences; gender-defined roles cause women and men to view and experience the world differently. The concept ‘gender’ refers to both men and women, but for this discussion, this paper specifically looks at women’s experiences in relation to knowledge production and management. Knowledge production is affected by the concepts of race, class and nation; therefore, a woman’s position in terms of her race, her economic status and geographical location determines whether she has the ability to act as a political, social and economic being. Feminisms practiced by women of colour went further to argue that not all women are equal because of the racialised nature of society and the world economy2 and discourses that spoke about ‘Third World Women’ without their participation also maintain a power hierarchy through which those women are denied agency and re-colonised through knowledge production.3 It is therefore necessary to create spaces in which women can communicate their experiences and generate knowledge, manage that knowledge and pass it on as information to other communities generally and women specifically.

Public spaces are dominated by men and masculine voices who determine action and outcomes. The public space itself is complicated by the urban/rural divide that has a high incidence of poverty and a lack of resources. Historically women comprise the majority of the rural population because men migrated to cities for work, a trend that is evolving as an increasing number of women leave rural areas for potentially better lives in urban areas. However, their access to information and knowledge has not increased even if their location has changed. Political, social and economic marginalisation and the feminisation of poverty and labour maintain women in positions where they do not have the power to speak out, contribute to knowledge production or access information. The advent of new media has heeded the demand for an ‘[i]ncrease [in] the participation and access of women to expression and decision-making in and through the media and new technologies of communication’.4 Representatives at the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva (2003) and Tunis (2005) affirmed their commitment to mainstreaming a gender equality perspective by means of ICTs.5 These initiatives acknowledge that women are not part of mainstream developments in the ICT field and focus on targeting women and other marginal groups for inclusion and development.

Location

Location is important in many ways. The representer’s political location in relation to the subjects she studies is imbued with the politics of representation. The insider/outsider dichotomy presents a myriad of complications as knowledge producers grapple with how they represent their subjects and whether they can speak for the ‘other’. Gayatri Spivak asks ‘Can the subaltern speak’ and answers no because often they speak through others through what Leela Fernandes refers to as a ‘colonial process of “information gathering” from “informants”’.6 The strategies of representation and knowledge production of ‘the other’ are vitally important as it bounds information within particular discourses of subject/object, informer/informant and reproduces relations found within larger systems of power.

For feminists, knowledge production involves new discourses that ‘sensitize us to the interconnections between knowledge claims ... and power’.7 Knowledge is thus integrally connected to power. In a critique against postmodern feminisms, Philomina E. Okeke argues that ‘intent on defending subjugated voices, dominant voices do not seem conscious of the relations of power that position them as “gatekeepers”, defining the insider and outsider even as postmodernism appropriates the voices of the latter’.8 This raises the question about who can speak for whom and how because ‘how what is said gets heard depends on who says it, and who says it in turn affects the style and language in which it is stated, and will in turn affect its perceived significance’.9 In this regard, postmodern feminists argue that women should speak for themselves and that each woman’s experience can be aggregated into a shared experience that is used for advocacy and rights-based action. Consequently, knowledge about African women should therefore be produced by African women in collaboration with each other and in the interests of a movement that could bring about social change. However, feminist knowledge is also embedded in class debates about what constitutes knowledge and where and how that knowledge is disseminated. Okeke argues for feminist scholarship that ‘affirms, even as it contests, particular knowledge claims’.10 If this does not happen, women’s voices are then sublimated in a discourse about what is allowed into feminist scholarship rather than creating the space in which women can speak freely about their daily lives.11

International Instruments and Knowledge Production

It is generally assumed that if an individual has access to information, she is empowered to make informed decisions about her life. Political scientists refer to this as making a ‘rational choice’. However, women were not deemed ‘rational’ or ‘objective’ because due to them being ‘irrational’ and ‘emotional’ were not capable of making informed decisions. Women were thus kept out of the deliberations about society, the polity and the public sphere. Voice and representation continue to be mainly limited to men in power, be it in the family, society or government. Social norms and values maintain women as the ‘silent majority’ on whom laws and policies are enacted. Despite many international instruments that promote gender equality and access to the public sphere, to mention a few, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) provides international benchmarks for gender equality12; the Millennium Development Goals advocate for an intensified focus on increasing education levels of women and girls by 2015; and, the UN Resolution 1325 that has resulted in the inclusion of women in peacekeeping and peacebuilding initiatives in conflict-torn areas, women are still excluded.

On the continent, when the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (also known as the African Union’s Women’s Protocol) was ratified in November 2005, it committed signatories to protect and promote the rights of women in Africa. Each region on the continent has specific gender protocols, for example, the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development13 and the Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance14. These provisions allow for programmes that target women’s development and also ensure that women are party to decision-making processes that influence the way they live their lives. In reality, despite all the instruments, women still continue to be excluded and, as a result, do not know about these milestone decisions that are taken at national and international levels because they do not have access to information or are not adequately informed.

Education has been targeted as an entry point for women’s development programmes because more women than men are un(der)educated. As Charlotte Bunch explains, reading and writing skills are vital to effect social and individual change:
First, [writing and reading] provide a means of conveying ideas and information that may not be readily available in the popular media. ... Second, reading and writing help develop an individual’s imagination and ability to think. ...Third, an individual’s access, through reading a variety of interpretations of reality, increases that person’s capacity to think for herself, to go against the norms of the culture, and to conceive of alternatives for society – all of which are fundamental to acting politically. Fourth, reading and writing aid each woman’s individual survival and success in the world, by increasing her ability to function in her chosen endeavours. And finally, the written world is still the cheapest and most accessible form of mass communication.15
Formal education is intricately linked with women’s empowerment as so many women are excluded from formal education programmes. In sub-Saharan Africa, the girl child and women are three-times more likely to be infected with HIV and AIDS than their male peers due to cultural and religious systems that prevent them from negotiating safer sex. Education and information have reduced the risk of infection by informing girls of their choices in intimate relationships; but, girls are still less likely than boys to finish formal schooling.16 Enrolment rates have increased since the adoption of the MDGs and National Action Plans that emphasise education as a tool for development, but in many cases, girls lag behind boys and, by implication, girls are most likely to be unemployed, silent and powerless in social and economic spheres.

It is widely assumed that knowledge gleaned through formal education would correlate with increased levels of agency among women. The 1988/9 World Bank Development Report regards knowledge as a necessary requirement for development to occur.17 As more women than men live in absolute poverty, especially in sub-Sahara Africa, more women need information and knowledge to be able to improve their socio-economic status in the region. By transferring information to women and closing the gendered knowledge gap, agencies and governments can involve more women in development work and in the public sphere and thereby contribute to more inclusive development outcomes. Organisations, movements and countries have to grapple with the ‘twin challenges of knowledge for development’, namely knowledge gaps and information problems.18 The WDR also talks about ‘beneficiary participation’ in the design and implementation of projects that would inform future World Bank operations.19 However, the concept of knowledge in the report engages with the production of indigenous knowledge through experience, but it does so inadequately without taking into account the power structures that are inherent in knowledge production: who produces knowledge; who has access; and how is it distributed.

Women and ICTs

For the reasons discussed above and the growth of new media, women’s movements around the world began to use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) that they could access to create, manage and distribute knowledge. New ‘knowledge practices’20 began to evolve that were more representative of women’s lives. Janeway refers to the evolution of a new power as ‘the refusal to accept the definition of oneself that is put forward by the powerful’ while bell hooks later entreats women to ‘exercise the power of disbelief’ to create new realities.21 As mentioned above, knowledge production has occurred in places many women do not occupy: the academe, policy think-tanks and other public sphere organisations. In post-conflict states the public sphere is starkly devoid of women despite United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. Those who produce knowledge in universities, colleges and other formal institutions often raise their theoretical endeavours above those whose work is practical. The theory/practice dichotomy stems from a false distinction between intellectual and non-intellectual work that has plagued feminist scholarship for decades. What constitutes knowledge is determined by mainstream debates on what qualifies as knowledge; exclusive attributes that are defined by those who are involved in fields of knowledge production. Women engaging in ‘non-intellectual’ work therefore have to become the producers of knowledge that is defined in more inclusive ways.

In this regard, women in non-governmental organisations that target women’s empowerment have the opportunity to engage with issues and to produce knowledge for their members and themselves. The practice of knowledge production therefore changes as the nature of the re-presenter22, the mode of representation and the audience change. New media has provided women with new modes of representation and often without a mediator as one sees in the case studies below. Criticism could be meted against new media for being exclusive as many rural women do not have access to or time for the internet, television or other electronic forms of communication. A counter argument to that criticism is that knowledge dissemination comes in many forms and ICTs are only one mode that on-line organisations are using. Women’s movements have to ensure that knowledge practices encompass all forms of knowledge production, management and dissemination to reach all their constituencies. What is important is that women receive the information, through dialogues, pamphlets, ICTs and so forth, that will lead to their full participation in the production of knowledge and decision-making processes, especially in post-conflict contexts.

ICTs are only ‘one tool among many required to support efforts towards women’s equality’ but regard it as a ‘critical site of intervention’.23 Other tools include infrastructure development; the provision of social services; access to the formal economy; gender equality, and so forth. ICTs have to complement other integrated development approaches. Often development is piecemeal and women’s needs are considered as an addendum. If development is meant to be successful, gender needs are to be considered in all stages of programmes and projects; thus, ICTs should be integrated as a means to convey information and to build community voices around important issues in communities.

Women around the world ‘face serious challenges – economic, social and cultural – that limit or prevent their access to, use of and benefits from ICTs.24 New technologies such as computers, the internet and established technologies like radio and television have a significant effect on who has access to information in a 21st century state. Cellular phones are yet to be used as mobilising tools in Africa but are very successfully used in global social movements. An international initiative known as the Know How community has assisted women leaders ‘to close the gendered digital gap, design social politics and produce information that can be transformed into knowledge by the appropriation of the ICTs’.25 ICTs work particularly well in post-conflict societies because they reach a greater mass of people than the conventional media, despite limited resources.
By and large, women are not involved in the decision-making processes of governments, companies and organisations. One notable exception, other than a marginal increase in the numbers of women in decision-making posts in these spheres, is in organisations that target women’s issues. These non-governmental organisations are run by women, led by women and for women, which makes them unique spaces in which women are fully engaged in all levels of decision-making. The apparent equality in women’s organisations does not remove the power dynamics that manifest in all organisations in general and women’s organisations specifically based on the position held, class, education levels, language, ethnic and other differences. Knowledge production and management therefore are affected by the culture and the philosophy of decision-making in the organisation.

Case Studies

Post-conflict countries provide a unique context in which gender relations are further skewed in favour of men. These three organisations are networks that have regional members or intra-country members that have experienced conflict in the last two decades. The three organisations each use ICTs to disseminate their information, but there are subtle differences that show a focus on regional versus national; rural versus urban; and sophisticated versus less sophisticated users. What follows is a brief synopsis of each organisation and final concluding remarks.

The Isis Women’s International Cross-Cultural Exchange (Isis WICCE) is now based in Uganda but was founded in 1974 in Geneva, Switzerland as an ‘action oriented women’s resource centre to meet the need for information by women from various regions of the world’.26 Its three programmes are in the areas of exchange, information and documentation and publications. Isis is the Egyptian goddess of knowledge. Isis WICCE moved to Kampala, Uganda in 1993 with the ‘objective of tapping African women’s ideas, views and problems and share the information with women at the international level’ and ‘contributes to the strengthening of Uganda and Africa’s women’s movement’ through the dissemination of information.27

Isis WICCE has various publications that cover an array of writing styles from reports, pictorial posters and flyers to audio visuals and on-line media. It also has an on-site Internet Café, a resource centre and hosts exhibitions. It provides access to information on many subjects that pertain to women’s empowerment in Africa and further afield. Their Exchange Programme Institute offers annual cross-cultural skills building programmes. The women who attend these courses come from all over the world and ‘use the space to learn from one another, share information, exchange ideas and acquire cross-cultural strategies and solidarity actions for addressing a diverse range of women’s issues, from the human rights perspective’.28 The Institute relies on a snowball effect of training a number of women in their programmes who then go out and train and inform others. Isis WICCE uses a range of tools that include dialogues, training programmes and ICTs.

The website has used sophisticated technology that limits access by those who are not ICT conversant. The information is viewed through hyperlinks on their Knowledge Exchange and Information Sharing website. The history of the organisation is also broken up into episodes of information that are opened by clicking on a ‘Prev’ or ‘Next’ button. Technology has been used optimally to display Isis-WICCE’s objectives, programmes and outcomes, but it is dominated by the assumption that its readers are ICT-literate and have access to the internet. Dralega critiques a project in Uganda that used ICTs and a CD-ROM to facilitate the learning and sharing of lessons of women in micro businesses for ‘derail[ing] from ascribed notions of African feminism; notably due to its top-down proponents’. 29 The risk is that nature of ICTs and their empowerment programmes could make women passive recipients of information rather than producers and managers of information.

The Mano River Women’s Peace Network (MARWOPNET), founded in 2000 in the Mano River Basin, incorporates women’s organisations from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. MARWOPNET’s mission is to ensure the participation of women and youth in ‘the prevention, management and resolution of conflict in the Mano River sub-region, throughout Africa and the world, to serve as a catalyst through which sustainable peace, human security and justice can be attained by ensuring gender responsive policies and building women’s/girls’ capacity for socio-economic, political empowerment and human development for all’.30 MARWOPNET is a network involved in regional peace and development issues. It is concerned with awareness-raising through the media; ensuring women’s participation in decision-making fora; providing training programmes; and arranging meetings with development partners, youth and other social networks.

MARWOPNET was instrumental in creating dialogue between the three governments of the Mano River basin, a process that led to a Heads of State Summit in Rabat in 2002. The Network also signed the Liberian Peace Accords in Accra in 2003 and was given observer status at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in December 2001. This Network mainly operates through meetings and dialogues rather than as an information hub. It does, however, have an on-line journal entitled ‘Voices of Peace’ that aims to ‘give voice to a diverse range of voices, particularly those of women, on peace- and conflict-related issues’ and ‘welcomes feedback from members, partners or other interested parties who would like to share their opinions, stories, letters, photos, or other materials for publication in the newsletter’.31 The testimonies, poems and drawings are first-person accounts of the horrors of conflict in the region.

‘Voices of Peace’ is an example of knowledge production and dissemination through an ICT medium. The information found on this website is a re-packaging of information as the individual’s words are placed in relation to other testimonies and poems. Layout of information also draws the reader’s eyes to particular information and photographs and drawings often attract more attention than a paragraph of words. MARWOPNET has managed to operate at the state level in the region and at the level of ordinary Mano Basin residents, which makes it an accessible organisation to a wide range of people in the region. Knowledge production’s power relations are therefore relatively reduced as two very disparate communities are brought together through the work of a single organisation. It appears that MARWOPNET is defunct as the website is no longer being updated and emails to the last-listed chairperson have not been answered.

The Zimbabwean Women’s Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN) is a Harare-based ‘women’s information organisation with a focus on collection, analysis, processing and dissemination of information on gender and development. The organisation’s strategic interventions aim to empower women, strengthen inter-organisational networking of gender and development agencies and promote the women’s movement in Zimbabwe’.32 The ZWRCN was founded in 1990 by a group of Zimbabwean women whose aim was to ‘empower women through the provision of information’ through key objectives to collect and disseminate information; repackage existing information ‘in forms appropriate to users’; and fill information gaps.33 ZWRCN has a Gender and Information Programme that provides information from its programmes and other sources to its members and on the internet to a wider audience. E-discussions and Gender and Development (GAD) talks are held at regular intervals to bring women together to discuss issues that are pertinent to their development and empowerment. The GAD talks are held in a ‘free space’ in a ‘Secret Garden’ which could be analysed as a women-friendly space in which women can air their thoughts about their location in Zimbabwean society, their politics in a fractured (but hopefully healing) state and their dreams for empowering themselves and their families within a broader global context.

One special programme that ZWRCN runs is the stories of women told in their own words. In email correspondence with me, the Executive Director said the following:

I would describe ZWRCN as a knowledge and information producer. We manage knowledge in the sense that we make decisions through input from women about the knowledge that they require and we disseminate it according to needs. I would describe our work as definitely empowerment focussed because our information is used for women to make better decisions about their political, social and economic aspects of their lives. Different information/knowledge products use women's input. The stories that we publish are called 'I' stories and they have up to now [been] generated from research (of the experiences of women in their communities) and converted into a publication.34

This provides ‘ordinary’ women with the tools to produce knowledge from their own experiences; to manage that knowledge in a story and disseminate that knowledge through a medium that re-packages it and sends it out as information. The re-packaging of knowledge also constitutes a form of knowledge production as in inserting an ethical ‘witness’ who is implicated in the telling and retelling of the story that ‘breaks through the traditional hierarchies and relationships of power that governs how we see’.35

Conclusion

These three post-conflict contexts, in which ZWRCN, MARWOPNET and Isis WICCE provide women with information and the spaces to create knowledge, are not unique. Their models of knowledge production, management and dissemination can be transposed onto other contexts provided they are inclusive at every stage of the knowledge practice. The organisations provide interconnections between women and women’s organisations to share information and practices that are achieved through different modes of transfer, for example, pamphlets; meetings; e-chats; organisational websites; conferences; radio and television; and programme-related documents. There are African success stories where ICTs have had a significant impact on women and their development and these organisations have shown that impact on their websites. This paper argues that it is necessary to change the power relationships within communities, organisations and between people to ensure that gender equality is achieved and the ways through which we do that would determine whether or not that happens. ICTs could contribute to women’s empowerment but should only be one tool in a toolbox of approaches that ensure a holistic and integrated development programme. ICTs have to power to include as well as exclude and care should be taken to avoid exclusion. Structural and cultural changes would ensure that women gain equal access to the public sphere where most ICTs are located in Africa as many women live in the rural areas and are homebound. Finally, as Elizabeth Kiondo argues, ‘there is a need to strategically work towards eliminating the barriers and obstacles while exploiting the opportunities to make ICTs effective tools for women empowerment and the promotion of gender equality’.36

Footnotes & Bibliography

World Summit on the Information Society, Geneva 2003 – Tunis 2005. ‘Declaration of Principles: Building the Information Society: A Global challenge in the new Millennium’, paragraph 1. http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/md/03/wsis/doc/S03-WSIS-DOC-0004!!PDF-E.pdf
The racialised nature of the world economy has been termed ‘global apartheid’ in reference to the racial apartheid (segregation) that existed in South Africa prior to 1994. For more debate on global apartheid, see Charles Mutasa, 2004, ‘Global Apartheid Continues to Haunt Global Democracy’, Pambazuka News, September 9. http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/develop/debt/2004/0909globalaparthei...
See Chandra Mohanty, 1991. ‘Under Western Eyes’ in Chandra Mohanty, Ann Russo and Lourdes Torres, eds. Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp.51-80.
United Nations, 1995. United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women – Action for Equality, Development and Peace: the Beijing Platform for Action. Strategic Objective J.1. ‘Women and the Media Diagnosis’. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/media.htm
See World Summit on the Information Society Geneva 2003- Tunis 2005 for the ‘Declaration of Principles’ and the ‘Plan of Action’ http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/md/03/wsis/doc/S03-WSIS-DOC-0004!!PDF-E.pdf and the ‘Tunis Commitment’ http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/tunis/off/7.pdf
Leela Fernandes, 2003. Transforming Feminist Practice, San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, p.81.
Jane Flax, 1990. ‘Postmodernism and Gender Relations in Feminist Theory’, in Linda J. Nicholson, ed., Feminism/Postmodernism, New York: Routledge, p.48.
Philomina E. Okeke, 1996. ‘Postmodern Feminism and Knowledge Production: the African context’ in Africa Today, 1 July, p.2 of 7.
Linda Alcoff, 1994. ‘The Problem of Speaking for Others’, in Susan Ostrov Weissner and Jennifer Fleischner, eds. Feminist Nightmares: Women at Odds: Feminism and the Problem of Sisterhood’, New York: New York University Press, p. 292.
Okeke, 1996, p4 of 7.
One example that is not without controversy is the research work on a Mexican woman’s experience of her life as an informal trader by Ruth Behar (1993) in Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza’s Story, Boston: Beacon Press.
United Nations, The Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/text/econvention.htm
United Nations, The Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/text/econvention.htm
http://www.iss.co.za/af/regorg/unity_to_union/pdfs/ecowas/12ProtDemocGoo...
Charlotte Bunch, 1979. ‘Feminism and Education: Not by Degrees’, Quest, vol. V, No. 1 (Summer), pp.1-7.’ cited in bell hooks, 2000, pp.108-109.
A Factsheet from DfID on ‘Girls Education’ shows that ‘[o]ut of the 44 million girls out of school, at least 20 million live in sub-Saharan Africa’ p.1. January 2007. There are anomalies like in South Africa where girls’ primary and secondary enrollment in school is outflanking that of boys.
World Bank, 1998. ‘World Development Report 1998/9: Knowledge for Development ’, p.1. Washington DC. The summary document was used in this paper
WDR 1998/99, 1998, p. 6.
Ibid., p.13.
Fernandes, 2003, pg. 79
Elizabeth Janeway, 1981. Powers of the Weak, New York: Morrow Quill cited in bell hooks (2000), Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (second edition), Cambridge, MA: South End Press, p. 92-93.
I consciously use this term to denote the difference between the subject (the presenter) and the person representing the subject (the re-presenter).
Janine Moolman, Natasha Primo and Sally-Jean Shackleton, 2007. ‘Taking a byte of technology: Women and ICTs’ in ICTs – Women Take a Byte – Agenda 71, pp.4-14.
Ibid., p5.
Know How, 2006. ‘The Mexico 2006 Know How Declaration – Weaving the Information Society; A Gender and Multicultural Perspective’, hosted by Programa Universitario de Estudios de Género (PUEG) and UNAM, in cooperation with the Know How Secretariat, August 23-25, p. 2. http://www.gert.ngo-bg.org/IMG/pdf/Mexico_Declaration.pdf
http://www.isis.or.ug/about-us/brief-history
http://www.isis.or.ug/about-us/brief-history
Ibid.
Carol Dralega, 2007. ‘Rural women’s ICT use in Uganda: Collective action for development’, Agenda 71, 2007, p.46.
http://www.marwopnet.org/vision_en.htm
http://www.marwopnet.org/voicesofpeace.htm
ZWRCN website, http://www.zwrcn.org.zw
Ibid., http://www.zwrcn.org.zw/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=25&Ite...
Personal email correspondence, with Dorothy Adebanjo, 24 March 2009.
Fernandes, 2003, pp.83-84
Elizabeth Kiondo, 2007. ‘Millennium Development Goals: Challenges and opportunities for using ICTs to promote gender equality in Africa’, Agenda 71, p. 25.

KM & Social Challenges

Factors associated with attitudes towards intimate partner violence against women

carol — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:06:58 -0600

Factors associated with attitudes towards intimate partner violence against women: A comparative analysis of 17 sub-Saharan countries.

Background: Violence against women, especially by intimate partners, is a serious public health problem that is associated with physical, reproductive and mental health consequences. Even though most societies proscribe violence against women, the reality is that violations against women's rights are often sanctioned under the garb of cultural practices and norms, or through misinterpretation of religious tenets.

Methods: We utilised data from 17 Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) conducted between 2003 and 2007 in sub-Saharan Africa to assess the net effects of socio-demographic factors on men's and women's attitudes toward intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) using multiple logistic regression models estimated by likelihood ratio test.

Results: IPVAW was widely accepted under certain circumstances by men and women in all the countries studied. Women were more likely to justify IPVAW than men. "Neglecting the children" was the most common reason agreed to by both women and men for justifying IPVAW followed by "going out without informing husband" and "arguing back with the husband". Increasing wealth status, education attainment, urbanization, access to media, and joint decision making were associated with
decreased odds of justifying IPVAW in most countries.

Conclusion: In most Sub-Saharan African countries studied where IPVAW is widely accepted as a response to women's transgressing gender norms, men find less justification for the practice than do women. The present study suggests that proactive efforts are needed to change these norms, such as promotion of higher education and socio-demographic development. The magnitude and direction of factors associated with attitudes towards IPVAW varies widely across the countries, thus suggesting the significance of capitalizing on need-adapted interventions tailored to fit conditions in each country.

Authors: Olalekan A Uthman 1,2,3, Stephen Lawoko 1 and Tahereh Moradi 4 Institutions: 1 Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Social Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; 2 Department of Public Health & Biostatistics, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK; 3 Center for Evidence-Based Global Health, Ilorin, , Kwara State, Nigeria; 4 Department of Environmental Medicine, Division of Epidemiology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden Source: BMC International Health and Human Rights 20 July 2009, 9:14.

Information Provided by Carol Lombard, Department of Social Development Population Website

KM & Social Challenges