February 28, 2020

Regional Forum on Sustainable Development drums up sense of urgency in achieving Agenda 2030 and AU Agenda 2063

The African Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (ARFSD) had one common refrain; no country is on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 and by extension, the African Union’s Agenda 2063 which is closely modelled along the framework. 2020-2030 is thus being billed as the Decade of Action, calling for acceleration of sustainable solutions to all the world’s biggest challenges — ranging from poverty and gender to climate change, inequality and closing the finance gap.

The ARFSD was held from 24th to 27th February, 2020 in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe under the theme “2020-2030: A Decade to Deliver a Transformed and Prosperous Africa through the 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063.” A cross section of about 3000 stakeholders including governments, multilateral organizations, Trade Unions, Non-Governmental Organizations, and youth groups attended the event organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. The ARFSD is an Africa wide meeting intended to create space for critical analysis on progress of the SDGs and to agree on a common continent-wide position to be presented at the High Level Political Forum which takes place in New York.

On the sidelines of the continental forum, Akina Mama wa Afrika, with other partners under the Women@Work campaign supported by Hivos hosted a side event titled Gender Equality for Africa’s Economic Growth. The event was an opportunity to address the nexus between safe workplaces, gender equality and economic growth. It looked specifically to develop ideas that can be implemented to leverage the newly adopted International Labour Organization Convention 190 on violence and harassment in the world of work as a tool to push for safe workplaces, dignified labour, and overall social and economic prosperity.

The panel discussion at the event was moderated by Wilson Chivhanga, Executive Director of Every Girl in School Alliance-EGISA. The side event was opened by Kalevera Imungu from Hivos East Africa who made a stirring presentation emphasizing that we need to rethink the way we engage women in economic empowerment work. “Women are being used as tools to deliver development and yet development is not working for them,” she stressed. Naome Chakanya, Economist and Senior Researcher at the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute in Zimbabwe, then presented findings from research carried out on horticultural farms in Zimbabwe intended to assess the impact of casualisation on decent work for women workers in Horticulture Agriculture sector. The research revealed that casual, seasonal and fixed term workers were exposed to sexual harassment in exchange for job security and contract renewal. The nature of this arrangement means that a number of women will only report sexual harassment when they lose their jobs, which is then usually dismissed as sour grapes.

Women are being used as tools to deliver development and yet development is not working for them.

The conversation then shifted to how women could access better protection in the workplace using the newly adopted International Labour
Convention 190 on violence and harassment in the world of work. Dorothy Otieno, Coordinator of the Women’s Leadership Project under the Women@Work Campaign at FEMNET made a case for why Gender Based Violence is a workplace issue because it impacts women even when they leave the house. She got a Kenyan Member of Parliament who was in attendance to commit to put ratification of convention the agenda. Leah Eryenyu, the Research Advocacy and Movement Building Manager at Akina Mama wa Afrika, then gave a global overview of the nexus of economic growth and gender equality. She contended that extreme income inequality exemplified by tens of the world’s wealthiest, holding as much worth as billions of the world’s poorest is symptomatic of gender inequality. It is women’s cheap and devalued labour that is exploited to subsidise vast businesses while women earn a pittance.

Extreme income inequality exemplified by tens of the world’s wealthiest, holding as much worth as billions of the world’s poorest is symptomatic of gender inequality

Women in supply chains in the horticultural sector are victims of this world order as they toil away earning foreign exchange for their employers. In order for things to change, the work of economic empowerment needs to go back to its original feminist underpinnings that looked at empowerment as transformation of power, and not simply increasing women’s income. In this case it would entail challenging ideas about gender that subjugate women, enabling access to resources that would help women grow, for example access to land, and transforming institutions that have allowed the exploitation
to go unchecked.

In order for things to change, the work of economic empowerment needs to go back to its original feminist underpinnings that looked at empowerment as transformation of power, and not simply increasing women’s income.

A number of recommendations emerged from the convening of the ARFSD to influence the High Level Political Forum. The recommendations were anchored to the key elements of Sustainable Development (the 5Ps): People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership. Some of these included;

  • Governments to design and implement pro-decent work macroeconomic policies and strategies supported by progressive minimum wage policies above the national poverty lines, and transition from the informal to formal economies.
  • Promote inclusive policies that address women’s domestic care work, enhance equity and opportunities for all, supported by availability of dis-aggregated data.

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