DEVELOPMENT BULLETIN-EAST AFRICA: East Africa Divided on Affirmative Action

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Judith Achieng'

NAIROBI, May 23 1998 (IPS) - Like many other documents produced after the 1995 UN Conference on Women and Development in Beijing, a draft treaty for the re-establishment of an East African Community (EAC) devotes some space to gender-related issues.

But many here wonder if it will go beyond words and really work on eliminating barrier to women’s participation in the economic development of the three countries of theroposed EAC — Kenya, Tanzania ad Uganda.

In fact, Kenya’s minister responsible for regional cooperation, Nicholas Biwott, made it clear earlier this month when he launched the draft treaty that no special measures would be taken in favour of women.

“Our women are self assertive, they don’t need affirmative action,” said Biwott. “We are gender sensitive at the community (EAC) and women are most welcome to participate, but we have not included affirmetive action.”

Not everyone agrees. Grace Onyango, a tailor here, believes the absence of affirmative action means EAC member states are not committed to uplifting the status of women. “This is not the first document we have seen outlining how women will be empowered and nothing comes of it,” she says.

While Biwott ruled out affirmative action in the field of economic integration, at least one of the three EAC countries — Uganda — has used it to try and reduce imbalances.

In Uganda, affirmative action has been used to improve the education of girls through the Universal Primary Education (UPE) system, under which two out of every four children whose education is sponsored by the government must be girls.

The government of President Yoweri Museveni has also enacted a law ensuring that at least a third of legislative and civic positions are reserved for women, and Uganda is the only African country that has a woman as vice president.

Not that the draft EAC treaty disregards the inequalities that characterise East African societies. Its 22nd chapter is devoted to such issues. It states, for example, that the EAC, whose secretariat is based in the north Tanzanian town of Arusha, will propose measures to eliminate prejudices against women. These are to include education programmes aimed at changing negative attitudes towards women.

If it is adopted, it could pave the way for the eliminati of lws such as one that requires a Kenyan woman to have the written connt of her husband, father or brother to get a paport or be granted permission to travel ut of the country.

Chapter 22 also targets the abolition of customs and other regulations that discriminate against women, the idea being to pave the way for women, who form the majority of small entrepreneurs, to become more involved in cross-border business.

The draft maintains that with the etablishment of an East African common market — one of the EAC’s targets — there will also be a common passport for all East Africans, which would ensure that goods, services and labour move freely across the borders, according to Biwott.

The EAC also plans to have a common parliament and court so as to cement the integration of the three countries and their some 80 million people. “We don’t want to end up in a situation like 1977 when the EAC broke up,”said Biwott.

The absence of common political ideals and an inequitable distribution of the profits of cooperation were cited as the main reasons for the collapse of the EAC in 1977. “The community could not survive then since Uganda was under military rule, Tanzania a socialist system while Kenya was a capitalist system,” said Biwott.

In 1993, Presidents Daniel arap Moi of Kenya, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and and Ali Hassan Mwinyi (Tanzania — later replaced by Benjamin Mkapa) began talks to revive the community. The latest outcome of the negotiations is the draft treaty, released in early May for three months of public scrutiny after which it is to be signed by the respective states.

Thus far there has been no substantial reaction to the draft from non-governmental organizations, but women interviewed by IPS complained that though the EAC said it had a gender policy, it fell short of their expectations.

“This ‘they ill manage somehow’ attitude will never improve the lives of African women,” said Njeri Mwaura, a business executive here. “What we want is affirmative action.”

Other sources said although women ran most small businesses in the three countries, they faced a host of obstacles such as unfair competition from subsidised imports with the advent of the liberalised markets and this needed to be addressed.

“I would have liked to see us fist nd foremost protected from unfair competition from second-hand shoe dealers,” commented Anila Patel, who runs a shoe shop here.

The women also want easy access to telecommunications to speed up their transactions and help their commodities move faster across borders.