Investing in Women as Partners in Development

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Investing in Women as Partners in Development

• Presentation to the 2nd Public Service Gender
  Indaba, Durban, 20-21st August 2009
• Alison Todes
• University of the Witwatersrand

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Introduction

• Talk focuses on local government
• On what decentralisation and integrated
  development planning have meant for womens
  rights defined at national level
• Reflects a study undertaken with Dr. Pearl
  Sithole (HSRC) and Amanda Williamson (Wits)

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Introduction

• International pressure for decentralisation to
  local government
• Assumes its good for women as local government is
  closer and more accessible
• But questions raised
• Local politics can be more conservative
• Easier for women to organise at national level
• Capacity/resources at local level may be too
  limited
• So research is looking at what happens to womens
  rights defined at national level in the context
  of decentralisation

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Background

• Decentralization in SA takes form of
  decentralized centralism
• increased powers and functions in autonomous and
  democratically elected local government
• along with a strong centre in terms of policy and
  guidelines, finances, and political processes.
• Reflects political history

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Background

• After 1994, fragmented and racially based local
  government was consolidated into large units.
• Two-tier system of district and local government
  outside of metropolitan areas (unitary local
  government )
• local government is now developmental
  promoting social and economic development, as
  well as democratic, participatory governance
• Local Integrated Development Plans (IDPs)
  introduced as strategic plans for municipalities
• IDPs also to give direction to local work of
  other spheres of government
• But elements of centralization
• Local government and IDPs expected to carry
  through constitutional principles and national
  policies
• Political processes are centralized
• Small local government budgets (15 of
  expenditure) and dependence on conditional
  national grants outside of big cities
• Decentralisation is uneven varying resources and
  capacities

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Background and Context

• SAs Constitution commits to gender equality
• Commitments carried through in several policies
  (albeit uneven)
• National Gender Policy Framework and national
  gender machinery
• Reflects strength of womens movement (national)
  in early 1990s and its impact on policy making
  processes
• But this organisation has subsequently declined

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Key Questions

• What happens to womens rights and entitlements
  defined at national level in the context of
  decentralization to local government, and
  particularly through IDPs as a decentralised
  planning process?
• Sub-questions
• To what extent have gender equity and womens
  rights been seen as key principles informing the
  design of the IDP process at the national level?
• Do local participatory processes give women voice
  in the IDP?
• Do municipal planning and budgeting processes
  reflect womens interests, needs and rights?
• Do projects and implementation processes take
  into account womens needs and rights?

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Key Findings

• Local government has been a sphere in which the
  objectives of gender equity have been slow to
  take hold.
• Womens organisations have largely focused on the
  national level
• Gender machinery mainly national and provincial
  level only starting to be developed at local
  level, and only some places
• Some support for mainstreaming gender in IDPs
  (documents), but not carried through in practice
• Partly reflects crisis of local government
• Where gender is taken up, focus has mainly been
  on representation of women

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Key Findings

• In the first local government elections (1995)
  only 19 of representatives were women, in
  contrast to 27.7 at national level.
• But has increased to 28.2 in 2000, and 39.7 in
  2006.
• But women depend on political parties to get
  elected, and thus are beholden to party
  interests.
• Local government representatives are divided
  between Proportional Representation (PR) and ward
  seats.
• Women are more strongly represented in PR seats
  controlled by political parties, yet ward
  councillors are seen as closer to communities,
  and as more representative
• Better representation and more inclusive politics
  in metropolitans areas than in more conservative
  rural areas , where traditional leadership and
  political practices prevail

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Key Findings

• Research conducted on 3 municipalities 2004-6,
  but most before recent rise in womens
  representation
• Limited political pressure on local government to
  attend to gender absence of local organisations
  focused on gender, and CBOs not coming together
  around these issues
• Local gender structures only in stronger
  municipalities, and still new
• Women were very present in the IDP participatory
  processes, but real voice/impact shaped by local
  politics
• Even where women were vocal, the IDPs themselves
  are largely silent on gender.
• Still, IDPs focus on basic services of importance
  to women

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Key Findings

• But women benefiting at a project level in
  several areas of infrastructure development and
  local economy across municipalities.
• Women are involved in committees, as workers, and
  as beneficiaries.
• Partly consequence of national guidelines which
  insist on the inclusion of women.
• But women continue to remain in marginal
  positions in development projects
• Variations among municipalities greater
  transformation in bigger cities more open
  politics, better resources and capacities

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Implications

• Need both top-down and bottom-up approaches
• Importance of national frameworks, guidelines and
  quotas for ensuring womens inclusion at local
  level even though these have limits
• In SA, where decentralization involves
  inter-governmental co-ordination through IDP
  processes are spaces to promote inclusion of
  women and gender
• Importance of increasing womens representation
  and participation
• Importance of promoting womens organisation, and
  drawing stronger links to local government

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Implications

• Value of gender analysis within IDPs/municipal
  planning helps to understand the range of men
  and womens needs in municipality
• Build on good practices in projects
• Value of approaches that move beyond numbers of
  women to empowerment
• Skills transfer
• Capacity building
• Mentoring
• Multi-dimensional support