Sally Chiwama’s Weblog

By Sally Chiwama

 As Africa seeks relaxed trade relations with Europe, women are still in the dark as to whether they will benefit from all the talks and agreements being signed in the international trade talks.

Gender and women’s rights have gained much significance in the recent past but little or nothing is done to their call, further womens voices are seldom heard in the in international fora.

A  need to undertake gender analysis of some of the trade agreements is critical, for an economy like Zambia. Some of the key issues which have to be considered include culture background as regards women’s and women’s economic rights.

Few studies or gender analysis models are suited to the needs and realities of women in developed countries, particularly with regard to the impact of trade agreements.

According to a study titled ”The likely Impact of Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) Negotiations on Women in Zambia” by Vladimir Chihinya and Patrick Chengo International trade and the institutionalization of trade entail many local, national and international regulations, the effects of which are not neutral for women.

This study seeks to highlight the likely implications of EPAs for women’s rights and gender relations. It will make recommendations on how to include gender analysis more systematically in Sustainability Impact Assessments, and in trade negotiations in order to ensure that EPAs promote, and not undermine, gender equality

Under the multilateral trading system the World Trade Organisation (WTO), key issues for women and men’s employment, livelihood, entitlements and rights, as identified by IGTN include, WTO issues that are of particular importance to the work of social reproduction: agriculture, services, intellectual property and investment.

From a different perspective woman, groups in Zambia are basically formed to support the commercial interests, of women. Respondents felt that Gender analysis must be linked to tangible economic benefits; there must be a gender analysis in the sustainable impact assessment, and trade negotiations

The EU-Africa summit that has just come to a close has highlighted that that Africa was losing a lot of money because of restricted agricultural imports imposed by Europe.

In his speech at the 2007 Lisbon Summit, President Levy Mwanawasa who is also Chairperson of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) said that Zambia was losing at least $150million per year on meat exports as a result of restrictions from European countries.

Dr. Mwanawasa further said highlighted the fact that it was obvious Africa was being denied the opportunity to earn itself a living through agricultural exports to Europe. We are all aware that women make up the majority of the population in the country and the agriculture sector employs more women than men but women always getting the wrong end of the stick.

At the same summit  Thomas Deve of GCAP Africa, Zimbabwe said fair and equitable trade must be a fundamental component of relations between Europe and Africa if poverty is ever to be addressed.  Yet, the new EU-Africa Strategy suggests that trade relations should be built on free trade and Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), “ EPAs are being negotiated outside the framework of the Africa-EU Strategy, under a time frame imposed by the European Union (EU) that will leave poor countries in Africa worse off.”

As of 2000 Zambia adopted the national gender policy, which entails the adoption of some milestone of programmes, to contribute to the attainment of the gender policy, and economic empowerment of women.

The EPAs  were not signed at the just ended Lisbon Summit and the deadline has been shifted to December 2008. However some countries signed interim agreements before the Lisbon Summit in an earlier meeting in Brussels. These are the East African community that included Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

The challenge with the interim agreements are that they are not clear on the transitional arrangements to full EPA. Also the sensitive lists have not been agreed upon.

According to the Regional Advocacy Officer for the Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM) Anne Maina says ” the small businesses and industries employing many women will collapse due to unfair competition from well established European Union (EU) companies”. 

In some of the economic structures, there is still lack of adequate representation of women at the management level. For instance despite the fact that women are heavily engaged in process of growing cotton in Zambia, until recently there were no women on the Cotton Association of Zambia’s Board and the so called women crops such as groundnuts will face stiff competition once markets are open to EU products thus destroying livelihoods for the women in Africa.

Agriculture represents a major activity in Zambia and the EU market has remained an important destination for agricultural exports. This makes the sector key to poverty reduction and economic development. The main potential change is related to EU liberalisation of sugar quotas, which may increase Zambian exports of sugar to the EU.

Women constitute 70 percent of the agriculture labour force in Zambia and will not only be affected as producers but as retailers as well, since most women are engaged in retailing agro-products.

In terms of economic policy making women’s involvement in policy work need to be enhanced as the current level of engagement is too minimal and strategies under the national gender policy are critical in empowering women with education; enhance literacy programmes, and enhancement of general life skills of women. In the health sector Zambia alongside most developing countries is challenged with child mortality, maternal health etc.

Zambia aims at becoming a middle income country by 2015; this will be mainly achieved through trade. EPAs must uphold the focus of promoting development focus, other than focusing entirely on trade. Zambia’s development programmes include, Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, Private Sector Development Programme, Millennium Development Goals,  Fifth National Development Plan,  Commercial, Trade and Industrial Policy,  Aid Policy and Strategy.