Introduction

Sustainable development refers to a development process which enhances peoples' capacity to create and consume wealth on a lasting basis. Sustainable development requires, among other things, a socio-economic, political and cultural environment which enables people to engage in and sustain the development process. The political system should provide stability to allow people to engage in production. Intra-ethnic conflicts, tribal wars and social tensions, as well as denial of basic human rights, constrain efforts to promote sustainable development. The social relationships between individuals and communities can either promote or constrain sustainable development. Social security is thus one of the necessary prerequisites for promoting sustainable development.

Besides social security, there is a need for economic freedom. Economic freedom in this context refers to a condition which enables people to utilize their innovative and creative capacities in the development process; protects individual economic rights to have access to productive assets, including land rights; provides a right to control one's labour in terms of decisions to engage in economic activity of one's choice; and conveys a right to control the fruits of one's labour. It also implies a right to gainful employment.

In ideal conditions, therefore, women, like men, need political stability which guarantees protection of their basic human rights, social security to be able to engage in productive activities, the right to develop and utilize their talents, fair pay for the work they perform, and the right to participate in the management of their societies as intellectuals, policy makers, producers and consumers.

This is the context within which the roles of women in promoting sustainable development will be discussed. But, before we do this, we shall briefly discuss the constraints which have limited women's contribution to promoting sustainable growth.

Constraints

The conditions under which African women have been participating in the development process have not enabled them to enhance their capacity to utilize their physical and intellectual energies in promoting sustainable development. Three areas are considered to have limited women's contribution to sustainable development: policy environment, social cultural setting and women's initiatives.

The Policy Environment

Most development plans and policies of African states have been "gender blind." The planning and policy making processes in the region have failed to appreciate the fact that women and men have different roles and that their needs and constraints are different.

Policy makers and planners have failed to address the socially structured subordination of women to men. Unequal division of labour, legal discrimination against women and abuse of women's basic human rights have been more or less ignored by policy makers and planners, despite the lip service paid to the elimination of sexual discrimination.

In brief, plans and policies have not been "gender responsive." That is, they have not recognized existing gender imbalances, and have not taken into account the different gender roles which men and women play. Women are therefore constrained in participating effectively in the development process because their subordinate position in society is ignored in development planning and policy making, while their concrete needs are equally ignored. This is reflected in the manner in which resources are allocated and utilized.

Access to Land and Unequal Division of Labour

Land tenure systems, for instance, are based on discriminatory policies. While most African states have considered agriculture the backbone of their economies and acknowledge the significant role of women in the agricultural sector, few have paid much attention to the land tenure systems which have been discriminating against women.

Women's access to loans and other credit facilities for agricultural improvement has been constrained by their inability to own land.

The impact of discriminatory land tenure systems on agricultural production;and specifically on production of food crops;is an area which needs careful analysis by policy makers and planners. This problem is more pronounced in countries where the migrant labour system has led to an increase in female heads of household who lack power and control over the land they work. This condition is worsened by the fact that the existing rural credit policies are also blind to the existing discriminatory systems. Women agricultural producers are not benefiting from rural credit facilities and this limits their contribution to promoting sustainable development in this sector.

Agriculture continues to be the backbone of African economies. According to a 1989 World Bank report, agriculture provides about 33% of African GDP and 40% of its exports, and has great potential for expansion. Most African communities have had gender specific roles in agricultural production. Land clearing is normally assigned to men, while women and men participate in tilling the land. Weeding is normally done by women, mainly in Gambia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Conakry, Liberia and ect.. who are also responsible for transporting crops from the farm to the home or to cooperative units. In terms of division of labour, studies have indicated that women have been contributing more time in the agricultural cycle than men. A recent study done for the World Bank, for instance, estimated that women in Africa produce up to 80% of all staple foods but own less than 10% of the land. In another study, on the world economic crisis and its impact on women, it was further estimated that women in this region contribute up to 30% of labour in ploughing, 50% of labour in planting, 60% of labour in weeding, 85% of labour in processing and preserving food, while performing up to 95% of all domestic chores. Indeed, throughout rural Africa, women's labour input is estimated to be three times that of men. "It would be appropriate to ask our farmers, especially men, how many hours a week or how many weeks in a year they work. The truth is that women in the villages work very hard, 12-15 hours in a day. They even work on Sundays and public holidays. Women who live in the villages work harder than everybody else. But men who live in the villages are on leave for half of their lives."

Development policies on this continent have been functioning under the assumption that women's labour supply is elastic. Increasing labour demand, as well as increased infant mortality rates, has been forcing women to produce more children. The time devoted to biological reproductive tasks constrains women's involvement in other productive activities. In the countries mentioned, for instance, it is estimated that an average woman devotes up to 17 years to pregnancy, breastfeeding and caring for young siblings. Women's biological and social reproductive roles are supposed to go hand in hand with their other productive activities. The present food insecurity cannot be isolated from the existing gender division of labour which is forcing women to increase the child population as a source of future labour. This has created an imbalance between food production and population growth. Sound population policies should not ignore existing inequities in the sexual division of labour.

Where the migrant labour system prevails, in such countries like Lesotho, Bostwana, Namibia and Swaziland, women have been forced to manage all agricultural activities single-handedly as most of the men have migrated to the mining industry in South Africa. This condition is worsened by the fact that the tools of labour used by women have never been improved. As a matter of fact, mechanization of agriculture has marginalized women. The small handhoe has been the main farm implement used by women. Their backs and heads have been the major means of transporting food and agricultural outputs from the farm to the household and to the market.

But despite the fact that women contribute more labour in agricultural production, they constitute a small minority of formal employees in this sector. A study done in Tanzania in 1989, for instance, showed that only 47 women were employed in the agricultural sector in the Ministry's head office, compared with 80 men. Of all these employees, not a single woman was a Principal Agricultural Officer.

Educational Policies and Gender Discrimination

Educational policies and educational plans have also limited the ability of women to fully utilize their intellectual energies in the management of their economies. African states inherited gender stereotyped educational systems from the colonial states. To date, little has been done to transform these gender typed systems.

Very few women have access to institutions of higher learning, and those who do enter specific, stereotyped fields. For instance, women constitute less than 25% of the total university student population. This means that very few women are able to contribute to the management of their societies as managers, intellectuals and politicians. Under-representation of women in higher education partly explains the marginalization of women in the mainstream of development planning, a factor which limits their contribution to the implementation of such plans. A more balanced development agenda for Africa needs the intellectual input of both men and women in the development process. This can only be achieved by removing gender barriers which limit women's access to higher forms of education.

In addition to marginal participation of women in education, and particularly in institutions of higher learning, women are stereotyped into those disciplines which groom them for traditional roles such as nursing, community service and secretarial work. For instance, in 1990, university enrolment figures indicated that females were concentrated in the fields of Nursing, Bachelor of Education and Humanities, while males dominated the fields of Law and Bachelor of Science. This implies that in the formal sector, women will be employed in the health sector and other related services while men will continue to dominate the judiciary, law-making organs and the scientific fields. This implies that women will continue to play a very marginal role in decisions regarding the laws of the land and science and technology.

Women's Initiatives

Participation of women in the development process has been constrained by their inability to influence policy making and planning, as well as by their inability to change the patriarchal ideology which continues to legitimize their subordinate status in society.

The majority of women have been participating in the economy as marginal actors in the agricultural sector, where they till land they do not own with the crudest tools and produce crops they do not control.

Others have opted to participate in the informal sector, where there is no state support and where at worst they are victims of state repression because most of their activities; such as street vending or local beer brewing; are considered illegal. The fraction employed in the formal sector participates as semi-skilled, unskilled or low-paid wage earners. They have been victims of the retrenchment measures which governments are pursuing in the name of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs).

Women have taken various initiatives in order to overcome some of the constraints which limit their effective participation in the development process. A few have organized economic groups and cooperative ventures. During the 1980s and 1990s, most African states witnessed a proliferation of women's income-generating projects. Most of these groups, however, are small in nature and have been confined to the informal sector. Most of these women-only projects, as Diane Elson noted, are not economically viable and, in the majority of cases, tend to be welfare oriented. Most are small and lack sufficient official support and have therefore remained outside mainstream plans.

Women's income-generating activities however, are enabling the majority of African states to weather a severe socio-economic crisis with minimal social upheavals, as women absorb the shocks of the crisis.6 And yet, such activities can only be sustained if;and only if;they are part of the mainstream plans, in other words, planned for, budgeted for and supported. With present trends of economic liberalization, however, these income-generating activities will not survive the competition from external and internal companies. Less state intervention in the economy might be a death knoll to women's economic activities.

Women on this continent have been implementing projects and plans which have been imposed upon them by their governments and the donor community. The marginalized position of women in Africa has been used by African states and donor governments to inject funds into issues other than those directed towards empowering women. African women have to fight for greater participation in decision making organs and should demand that governments be more accountable to them. Women will contribute more effectively if they participate in the decisions which affect them and society at large.

This has forced some women's groups, in Africa's lobby group, to organize for political influence. Women can only contribute to the sustainable development process if they are part of those who design plans and formulate policies. This means they have to play a more aggressive role in the management of their societies.

African states have to recognize that unless men and women participate in designing development programmes and formulating policies for the development process, sustainable development will remain a distant dream…