Unleashing Africa’s Girl Power: Healthier, Wealthier, and Better-Educated Women Tend to Produce Healthier, Wealthier, and Better-Educated Families
By Joaquim Chissano
October 17, 2014
Sub-Saharan Africa’s
economies have boomed in recent years. But the headline figures often mask
longer-term problems – not least, an over-reliance on natural resources and
chronic inequalities. Inclusive, sustainable growth is achievable, but only by
tapping the continent’s greatest reserve of energy and creativity: African
women and girls.
Health and development
experts, economists, non-governmental organizations, United Nations agencies,
and banks agree that the key to unlocking Africa’s potential lies in expanding
women’s education, freedom, and job opportunities. Today, many African women
are not only expected to fulfill traditional roles, such as raising children
and caring for the elderly; they also face legal and social discrimination
regarding land and property ownership, inheritance, education, and access to
credit and technology – in addition to oppressive sexual mores and violence.
Yet gender equality is
necessary for the continent’s well-being. Consider the pressing issue of food
security. Women comprise half of the agriculture sector’s workforce, growing,
selling, buying, and preparing food for their families. Studies suggest that
equal access to resources would increase farm yields by 20-30%, offsetting the
effects of drought and climate change. Access to education, capital, markets,
and technologies would allow women to process, package, and market their
products, especially for Africa’s growing middle class, bolstering both
earnings and food supplies.
Agriculture is but one
example. Greater female participation in male-dominated occupations across the
board would increase overall labor productivity by up to 25%. The same is true
of politics, where more female participation and leadership would improve
governance and public services, as promising experiences in some parts of
Africa and elsewhere have shown.
The first step to
improving conditions for women must be to strengthen their sexual and
reproductive health and rights – an issue concerning which Africa has some of
the world’s worst indicators. Simply put, women must be allowed to decide, free
of coercion or violence, about their sexuality and health; if, when, and whom
to marry; and whether and when to become a parent. This cannot happen without
providing women and girls with the information, education, and services they
need to make their own decisions.
Sexual and
reproductive health issues exact a huge yet largely avoidable toll on African
women, their families, and communities. The costs usually strike in the prime
of women’s economically productive lives, devaluing their future contributions
to society. At the extreme, more than 400 African women and girls die every day
during pregnancy or childbirth, scarring families and plunging surviving
children into hardship.
Many of these deaths
are caused by the estimated five million unsafe abortions carried out annually
in Sub-Saharan Africa. The cost to society in lost income from death and
disability is nearly $1 billion. Almost all of these deaths occur in countries
with restrictive abortion laws, which African leaders should consider reforming
as a matter of common sense and social justice.
A prime focus should
be on protecting the most vulnerable – adolescent girls. More than one-third of
African girls marry before the age of 18, which threatens their health,
truncates their education, and lowers their aspirations for the future. They
are also more likely than older women to die of birth-related complications,
and are more prone to abuse. Though most African states outlaw early or forced
marriages, enforcement is weak.
African girls are also
disproportionately vulnerable to contracting HIV. Roughly 90% of the world’s
pregnant women and children with HIV live in Africa, and, despite notable
recent reductions in HIV transmission rates, adolescent girls are still more
than twice as likely as boys of the same age to carry the virus. Yet barely a
third of young Africans know how to prevent HIV – another reason for urgent and
comprehensive sexuality education.
Another epidemic afflicting
African women is violence, all too often perpetrated with impunity. Sexual
violence is used as a tactic of war. But it is also a disturbing feature of
home life; 37% of African women report having been abused by their partner. In
the case of female genital mutilation and child marriage, such violence is
culturally sanctioned. We must change laws, judicial systems, and attitudes
that exonerate the perpetrators, and we must provide help to victims.
Attitudes can change.
Contraception, for example, was once a contentious issue. Today, most African
leaders accept it as an important, cost-effective investment and as part of
their countries’ economic-development strategies. Basic family planning in 16
Sub-Saharan countries could save more than $1 billion in education costs alone.
The number of maternal deaths could fall by one-third, saving millions (in
developing countries overall, maternal and new-born health-care savings could
reach $5.7 billion). However, the sad reality is that, despite support from various
development partners and donors, assistance for reproductive health care and
family planning fell by half in the last decade.
The compounding
benefits of ending legal, economic and gender discrimination are vast.
Healthier, wealthier, and better-educated women tend to produce healthier,
wealthier, and better-educated families, because women typically invest more of
their earnings than men do in their children’s wellbeing. With the continent’s
population forecast to double by 2050, there is hardly a better time to invest
in women and girls. It is as much an economic as an ethical argument.
Joaquim Chissano, former President of Mozambique,
co-chairs the High-Level Task Force for the International Conference on
Population and Development (ICPD).
Copyright: Project Syndicate/Europe’s World, 2014.
www.project-syndicate.org
www.europesworld.org
Source:
http://www.todayszaman.com/op-ed_unleashing-africas-girl-power_361952.html