Edited by: Tolulope Jolaade Adeogun, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Reviewed by: Robert Kelvin Perkins, Norfolk State University, United States; Fernando Salinas-Quiroz, National Pedagogic University, Mexico
This article was submitted to Gender, Sex and Sexuality Studies, a section of the journal Frontiers in Sociology
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Concerns over women's marginalization and invisibility in Africa policy-making, remains a fervent international discourse. These concerns are likely due to restrictive laws, cultural diversities and practices, institutional barriers, as well as disproportionate access to quality education, healthcare, and resources. Reversing these discriminatory practices is not impossible, and can be achieved by implementing the right mechanisms across the continent. The process toward increasing the visibility of women in decision-making across the continent, requires an understanding of the progress made so far, the challenges faced and the way forward. As a consequence, this paper conducted a review of literature to determine the key decision-making organs in Africa, the current status of African women and women's organizations in decision-making, existing institutional policies demanding female involvement in decision-making and the progress made in the continent so far. This paper will also provide recommendations to accelerate the way forward in view of Agenda 2030.
The African continent is one of the largest and most populous on earth (Abu-Aisha and Elamin,
Africa has 55 countries, nine territories, two individual states, varied ethnicities, and vast cultures and languages (Barth,
Despite its rich heritage and numerous natural resources (Viljoen and Reimold,
Nigeria, for example, is still classified as a poor nation (Olawole and Alao) despite numerous government policies and resources, committed to alleviate poverty (Omotola,
The continent has been destroyed by politics, bad governance, corruption, and gender imbalance in decision-making, for over a decade. This has culminated in serious abuses and violations of human rights, failed governance, poor health care, high levels of illiteracy, ineffective utilization of foreign aids, political instability, as well as frequent tribal and military conflict (Sandbrook and Barker,
The foundation for the current status of African women, was laid by an Eurocentric educational system inherited from colonialism. This system, designed around formal education, was designed to nurture male dominance in paid employment, leadership, politics, governance, and decision-making. Thus, fostering gender discrimination in decision-making in Africa. To break these discriminatory trends in Africa, both Uganda (since 2001) and South Africa (since 1999) advanced the participation of a larger number of women in formal politics. Despite these accomplishment, Uganda's parliament is one quarter female, while women's presence in South African's parliament is approximately one third (Goetz and Hassim,
In view of this, this study will conduct a review of literature to determine the key decision-making organs in Africa, the current status of African women and women's organizations in decision-making, existing institutional policies demanding female involvement in decision-making, and barriers to women's involvement in the decision-making process in Africa.
There are several approaches on female participation in decision-making in Africa. First is the women's human rights approach, which claims that since women are about half of the entire population in Africa, they have a right to be represented in decision-making (Boserup et al.,
At the policy level, feminist theorists advancing a theory of congresswomen's impact on women's issues, suggest that women are a homogenous group who need to be represented in discussions that result in policy-making and implementation, as their experiences are unique and different from those of men (Young,
As shown in Figure
Women's empowerment and involvement in decision-making.
Below follows the inter-related conceptual framework for gender equity in decision-making processes:
What are the key decision-making organs in Africa?
What is the current status of African women and women's organizations in decision-making?
What are the existing institutional policies demanding female participation in decision-making in Africa?
What are the barriers to women's participation in the decision-making process in Africa?
What is the way forward?
This study reviewed literature on the invisibility of female participation in decision making in Africa using Google scholar.
The African Union (AU), bringing nations together and keeping them in check, emerged from the twentieth century processes of decolonization (Nathan,
Essentially, the Constitutive Act of the African Union (Kuwali and Viljoen,
Many gender equality and women empowerment (GEWE) missionaries, non-governmental organizations, women's groups, and individuals have worked together in various national, international and transnational contexts to bring women and women's interests into government affairs (Ross,
Despite these efforts and achievements in some African nations, variations in the degree of women's visibility in decision-making across the continent, ranging from <5% in Egypt to over 40% in South Africa remains (Yoon,
The need to visibly engender women's participation in decision-making became a growing global concern through the CEDAW—the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (United Nation General Assembly,
In 1995, the Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women, focused on the persistent exclusion of women from formal politics and decision-making. The Beijing Platform of Action (BPoA) (Declaration, Establishing gender-balanced governmental bodies, committees, public administration and judiciary, through specific targets and a positive action policy; integrating women into elective positions in political parties; promoting and protecting women's political rights; and reconciling work and family responsibilities for both men and women (Declaration, Conducting leadership and gender awareness training; developing transparent criteria for decision-making positions; and creating a mentoring system (Declaration,
The need for equal participation and fully involving women and women's organizations in conflict resolution and peacebuilding, were affirmed by the Security Council in resolution 1325 (2000) (Hill et al.,
The following are some of the challenges faced in women's participation in decision–making processes in Africa:
There is a dire need for substantive representation of women in decision-making positions in Africa, especially in the formulation of GEWE related policies and the mainstreaming of gender into existing policies, as well as plans and programmes aimed at explicitly advancing the gender equality agenda of the SDGs across the continent. Substantive presence of women is also needed as key decision-makers in policy formulation, aimed at achieving gender equality in development, sustainable peace, and good governance within African sub-regions.
There is also a need to visibly engage women's organizations in decision-making and transform partnering them with GEWE projects. Women's participation and representation in decision-making bodies in Africa should not only be a numerical enhancement of presence, but their empowerment for political leadership and accountability at all levels.
At national levels, state actors must be obligated to establish legal frameworks for the GEWE. Non-state contexts such as trade unions, political parties, interest groups, professional associations, and the businesses/private sector should also be involved in policy decision-making. There should also be an evolution of trans-national women social movements and engagement with the GEWE. In addition to decision-making, there is also the need for women to influence policies and strategies geared toward women's increased access to economic opportunities and effective participation in politics.
African women have only been marginally involved in decision-making. Creating opportunities for the institutionalization of women's visible involvement in decision-making in Africa will strengthen the acceleration of sustainable developmental goals on the continent. Consequently, governments of individual nations in Africa are expected to create an enabling policy environment and engagement strategies for the institutionalization of women's visible involvement in decision-making at all levels—families, communities, state wide and on national levels. There is also the need for international agencies to continue to support women's organizations' visible engagement in decision-making in Africa.
The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.
The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The handling editor declared a past co-authorship with the author OOI.