WORKSHOP ON WOMENS LEADERSHIP

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WORKSHOP ON WOMENS LEADERSHIP

• Leadership and Gender Mainstreaming for Tackling
  HIV/AIDS and Poverty
• 29 August 03 September 2005

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OVERVIEW OF THE MODULE

• Part 1 Why gender is a poverty and
• HIV/AIDs dimension? What are the gender
• issues in poverty and HIV/AIDs?
• Part 2 What are the linkages between
• gender inequalities, poverty and the HIV/AIDs
• pandemic?
• Part 3 How to effectively address gender
• concerns in poverty reduction strategies and
• HIV/AIDS programmes? (will be an introduction to
• Module 3)

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• WHY GENDER IS A POVERTY AND
• HIV/AIDs DIMENSION?

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WHY GENDER IS A POVERTY DIMENSION?

• What is poverty about?
• Evolution in the understanding and definition of
  poverty
• Rights-based and gender responsive human
  development, poverty a state as well as a
  dynamic, complex and multi-dimensional process of
  socio-cultural, political and economic
  deprivation experienced differently by groups and
  individuals
• Women and men, girls and boys have different and
  specific gender roles and COINs Constraints,
  Options, Incentives and Needs.

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WHY GENDER IS A POVERTY DIMENSION? (cont.)

• Because of gender differences, women and men are
• (i) affected differently by poverty,
• (ii) have different poverty reduction priorities
• (iii) are affected differently by poverty
  reduction strategies
• Contribute to and benefit differently from
  poverty reduction strategies
• Discussion in plenary example of how women and
  men experience poverty in Ethiopia

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GENDER ISSUES IN POVERTY

• Gender issues in poverty
• Gender is a poverty dimension that cuts across
  each of the other poverty dimensions
• (i) Capabilities women and girls have limited
  access to social services such as education,
  health, compared to men and boys. Example in
  Ethiopia, data from various surveys estimate
  womens literacy rate at 32.4 against 48.1 for
  men. Primary school enrolment rate (2000/2001)
  67.3 for boys compared to 47.8 for girls.
• Secondary school only 10.99 of girls compared
  to 14.3 of boys.
• Health 97 of births take place at home (DHS,
  2000), high maternal mortality rate i.e.
  810/100000. Harmful traditional practices such as
  milk extraction, massaging abdomen of pregnant
  women, FGM, abduction and early marriage lead to
  females serious health problems.

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GENDER ISSUES IN POVERTY (cont.)

• (ii) Opportunities women lack or have limited
  access to and control over socio-economic
  opportunities such as land, agricultural inputs,
  employment, credit.
• (iii) Vulnerability they are more vulnerable to
  risk and shocks and violence. WAOs 2000 report
  on case violence committed against w estimates
  the total number of cases reported in 10 regions
  at 2263 for rape and 507 for abduction.
• (iv) Empowerment womens representation to
  decision-making sphere at national and local
  level are lower than mens. W represent around 6
  (5,9) of Ministers and rank of Ministers against
  94 of men. One W is Vic e Minister compared to
  11 men. They represent only 7.7 of
  parliamentarians and 11.4 of the regional
  councils (WAO 2004 Report).

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WHY GENDER IS A HIV/AIDs DIMENSION?

• Gender roles and relations and the inherent power
  relations influence directly and indirectly the
  level an individual woman and man, girl and boys
  risk and vulnerability to HIV infection.
• Gender is a critical dimension in determining the
  level and quality of care, treatment and support
  that HIV positive women and men receive.
• Gender also determines the burden of care for
  sick people supported largely by women and girls.

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WHY GENDER IS A HIV/AIDs DIMENSION? (cont.)

• In HIV/AIDs pandemic, both a persons sex and
  gender determine the extent to which he/she is
  vulnerable to infection and his/her ability to
  access to care and treatment.
• Epidemiological and bio-medical research done by
  UNAIDs, WHO, 1994, Women Foundation, 1997)
  suggests that physiological factors account for
  the more transmission of infection from an
  infected man to a woman than from an infected
  woman to a man.

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GENDER ISSUES IN HIV/AIDs PANDEMIC

• Socio-cultural norms about masculinity and
  feminity, and the unequal power relationships in
  favour of men combined with biological and
  physiological factors determine an individual
  woman/girl and man/boys vulnerability and risk
  of HIV infection.
• While sex is biologic, sexuality is the social
  construction of a biological drive. Thus,
  imbalance in power in favour of men leads to
  womens powerless to negotiate their sexuality.

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GENDER ISSUES IN HIV/AIDs PANDEMIC (cont.)

• Socio-cultural harmful norms and practices such
  as female genital mutilation, levirate, dry sex,
  widow clearing rites increase women and girls to
  to high HIV infection.
• Socio-cultural norms also create social pressure
  for men and boys to take risks as they are
  socialised to prove their manhood by having sex
  with multiple partners.
• In certain societies, gender norms expect
  unmarried girls to remain virgins an innocent,
  this restrict their access to full information
  about sexuality and reproductive health services.

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GENDER ISSUES IN HIV/AIDs PANDEMIC (cont.)

• Because of the above gender factors, women and
  girls are more infected by HIV/AIDs in Africa,
  the most infected and poorer continent.
• Some evidences 55 of the HIV infected in Africa
  (where more than two/third of the HIV positive
  live) is female.
• The SA Statistics Department of Health (2004)
  estimates that 6.23 millions SA were HIV positive
  at the end of 2004 with w being more infected
  3.3 millions.
• by HIV/AIDs and women constitute 1.1 million.

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GENDER ISSUES IN HIV/AIDs PANDEMIC (cont.)

• In Ethiopia, data from UNAIDs, UNICEF, WHO, 2002
  estimates that 1.9 million of the population
  between 15-49 years old are infected.
• This suggests the need for empowering women
  through leadership promoting womens
  self-confidence to speak out and act for
  themselves and protect themselves from HIV/AIDs
  but also to effectively contribute to
  decision-making over strategies to address the
  interlinkages between gender, poverty and
  HIV/AIDs.

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GENDER INEQUALITIES, POVERTY AND HIV/AIDs THE
VICIOUS CYCLE

• Gender inequalities

Poverty
HIV/AIDs
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GENDER INEQUALITIES, POVERTY AND HIV/AIDs THE
VICIOUS CYCLE

• Gender inequalities exacerbate poverty and
  HIV/AIDs pandemic. In turn, poverty and HIV/AIDs
  pandemic exacerbate gender inequalities and
  women/girls marginalisation.
• Indeed, poverty and HIV/AIDs reinforce gender
  inequalities.
• Gender inequalities act as a powerful constraint
  to poverty reduction.
• Evidence from Africa suggests that gender
  inequality in access to education is strongly
  associated with lowered economic growth (Klasen,
  1999, Dollar and Gatti, 1999).

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GENDER INEQUALITIES, POVERTY AND HIV/AIDs THE
VICIOUS CYCLE (cont.)

• Gender inequalities in technology lowers womens
  agricultural productivity this in turn reduce the
  national agricultural productivity and growth,
  given the driving force of agriculture in African
  economies.

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GENDER INEQUALITIES, POVERTY AND HIV/AIDs THE
VICIOUS CYCLE (cont.)

• Cross-country evidence on the impact of gender
  inequalities in education suggests that if
  countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and
  the Middle East and North Africa closed their
  gender gaps in average years of schooling at the
  rate achieved by East Asia from 1960 to 1990,
  gross national product (GNP) per capita in those
  regions could have grown by about one-half
  percentage point higher per year, equivalent to
  30 to 45 increases (World Bank, 2000).

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GENDER INEQUALITIES, POVERTY AND HIV/AIDs THE
VICIOUS CYCLE (cont.)

• Gender inequality in time budget has negative
  impacts on the household income generation.
  Tibaijuka,1994 found that in Tanzania, a
  reduction in womens time burden led to increase
  in household income by 10, labour productivity
  by 15 and productivity of capital by 44.
• Poverty also exacerbated gender inequalities,
  poor women are more marginalized as they are not
  able to voice their needs and interests, they are
  more powerless vis-à-vis to men.

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GENDER INEQUALITIES, POVERTY AND HIV/AIDs THE
VICIOUS CYCLE (cont.)

• HIV/Aids decimates the agriculture labour force
• affecting food security (women being the backbone
  of food production in Africa).
• As analysed above, gender inequalities increase
  women and mens vulnerability and risk to
  HIV/AIDs infection. This correlation is
  exacerbated by poverty.
• Women are primary responsible for domestic tasks
  while men are considered as breadwinners and are
  primary responsible for performing productive
  tasks.

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GENDER INEQUALITIES, POVERTY AND HIV/AIDs THE
VICIOUS CYCLE (cont.)

• These gender roles assignment dramatically reduce
  women and girls access to and control over
  services and opportunities such as education,
  employment, land, credit essential to develop and
  use effectively their potentials.
• This significantly increases their dependency on
  men and reduces their ability to negotiate safe
  sexuality.

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GENDER INEQUALITIES, POVERTY AND HIV/AIDs THE
VICIOUS CYCLE (cont.)

• The existence of strong linkages between gender
  inequalities, poverty and HIV/AIDs means that
  gender concerns have to be effectively and
  meaningfully addressed in poverty reduction
  strategies and HIV/AIDs programmes if poverty and
  HIV/AIDs are to be tackled in Africa.
• It is also the condition sine qua non for the
  continent to achieve the MDGs by 2015.

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I THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION