Malawi: Women’s economic opportunities will curb poverty

The recent 29 May polls in Malawi saw the number of women members of Parliament rise from 14% to 22%. About 125 women competed for the 193 seats, with 43 successfully gaining ground. For the first time since independence in 1964, Malawi also has a female vice-president, former Minister of Foreign Affairs Joyce Banda.

However, this is still far from the 30% by 2005 target set by the Southern African Development Community (SADC). It is even further from the 50% by 2015 agreed by most SADC leaders last August when they signed the Protocol on Gender and Development. Although Malawi, along with Mauritius and Botswana, has not yet signed this document, there is still a need for the nation to move in the same direction as its regional counterparts, and address the vast gender imbalances in governance.

Such low representation of women makes it difficult to ensure government creates policies and programmes to reach another of the SADC Protocol’s provisions, economic empowerment of women, including access to productive resources.

Just prior to the elections, DanChurchAid, a Danish humanitarian organisation, mounted a national conference in Lilongwe to explore economic empowerment strategies. Ngeyi Ruth Kanyongolo, Law Lecturer at the University of Malawi, described how being deprived of economic resources disadvantages Malawian women.

"Women in Malawi don’t have control over their own income, and access to loans and farming land is very minimal," explained Kanyongolo. Kanyongolo noted that putting more women in decision-making positions is part of the solution, yet the country needs many diverse initiatives if economic and social rights are to be a reality for women.

The conference produced the Lilongwe Declaration, which calls upon every sector of society to do “something extra” to expand economic opportunities for women, especially rural women. It also urges micro finance lending institutions to put in place deliberate affirmative actions to increase the number of women accessing loans. Providing an environment in which women are able to help themselves is at the heart of such economic empowerment, and affirmative action is needed to help break some of these barriers.

For example, women often have difficulty accessing credit to start a business, and the removal of collateral as a requirement to access loans from financial lending institutions, along with reduced interest rates for women, would go a long way to help women entrepreneurs. Women should be guaranteed the ability to own and have control over own income and assets.

This is not to say that there are currently no such initiatives. For example, some institutions, non-governmental organisations, and the private sector are promoting village saving and credit cooperatives and associations, providing business management skills trainings, and linking women to loan providers.

However, there is the need for government to ensure that legal frameworks to guarantee these measures are in place, and perhaps with greater gender representation at the decision-making table, this would be a reality.

Women in governance structures should also translate into woman’s perspective on budget formulation – where the resources go. It is also important to provide a way for grassroots women to be involved in this budget process, to ensure that their priorities are addressed.

Dan Church Aid Secretary General Henrik Stubkjaer noted that Malawian women comprise the majority of the labour force in the country’s agricultural sector, which is the backbone of the nation’s economy. In addition, it is estimated that an additional 6% of food could be produced annually in SADC if women had equal resources at their disposal as men do, such as ownership of land.

Likewise, studies elsewhere have shown greater mothers control over resources at the household level means it is more likely that resources will be allocated to children’s health and nutrition in the family.

In Malawi, poverty largely has a woman’s face - 58.4% of the poorest households are female headed, 90% of Malawian women are not in waged employment, and of those living with HIV or AIDS 57.2% are women. If Malawi is to move from poverty to prosperity, there is a need for government, the private sector, and organisations to capitalise on the potential of all of its citizens – men and women.

* Daniel Manyowa is a freelance journalist based in Malawi. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service that provides fresh views on everyday news.