Letter to Thabo Mbeki from African women

South African leader Thabo Mbeki, in his state of the nation address at the opening of parliament in Cape Town last Friday, focused on plans to support government’s accelerated and shared growth initiative (Asgi), aimed at boosting economic growth and job creation. But Mohau Pheko and Lebohang Pheko, from the Gender & Trade Network in Africa, take Mbeki to task for failing to adequately consider the country’s women in his latest plans to fast-track growth.

Dear Mr. President Thabo Mbeki,

You have missed a great opportunity in the State of the Nation Address to articulate the problems confronting the women of South Africa. Why is it after 50 years of contributing to resistance, opinions, wisdoms and economic growth in this country when you mention us in your speeches we are merely lumped together with the disabled who should also take exception to this patronising marginalisation.

Since this is the 50th year that women celebrate their tremendous contribution to this country, it is worth using it to sum up what the last 12 years have been like in terms of economic policy. In adopting a market led macroeconomic strategy, we should tell you that the relationship between women, markets and the state has been increasingly complex. The market in the past 12 years has not acted in the interest of women nor has the state always acted in the interests of women. This has resulted in a rather disconnected policy framework which has failed to accurately evaluate the realities of women’s lives which are controlled through the interaction of economic, political, social and cultural forces based on class, gender and race. The policy framework has also failed to evaluate women’s role in social reproduction and how they maintain life within the family and communities they live in.

It is deplorable that women in the South Africa’s policy framework are still treated as dependents and instruments for family survival or state objectives. South Africa has long neglected gender as a category in the economic analysis of poverty, growth, inequality and the concentration of wealth. The frameworks suggested for poverty eradication by 2014 do not empower the majority of women in their own right. They tend to view women from a skewed perspective of ‘neediness’ rather than recognizing women’s wisdom, intellect, and achievements.

More importantly the assumptions in your Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (ASGISA) do not spell out how the women of this country stand to benefit from this plan. The latest labour survey still reports that women are the most unemployed in the country. The most recent United Nations Human Development Report for South Africa confirms that women are still the poorest in our country and this trend is downward. In ASGISA, who are you accelerating growth for? How will you ensure that women qualitatively and quantitatively share in this growth? What type of growth are you talking about? The pattern of growth is as important as the rate of growth. Some growth patterns even if they increase per capita income and consumption may in the long run be detrimental to women as we have experienced in the current neo liberal framework. Economic growth without a distribution mechanism is inimical to women. Economic growth that depends on cuts in public expenditure, productivity, on labour deregulation are a danger to women in this country. Growth patterns or resource allocation that do not meaningfully integrate women, or result in growth equity are all costly to the women of this nation.

Many of your policy makers and public servants do not understand that women experience poverty differently from men due to gender inequalities resulting in different access to entitlements, economic leverage and social advancement. Women are subjected to the intergenerational transfer of poverty. Women have fewer economic resources, less access to labour markets. They shoulder greater responsibilities at the household level and many have restrictions on their mobility. These interlocking disadvantages result in women having less time to access your expanded works programme and less power to negotiate opportunities. How will ASGISA respond?

Gender equity is the power relationship that enables men and women to have equal access to the scarce and valued resources of their society. Within asymmetrical, unequal power relations at the household level women are the least powerful. These asymmetries include employment, education, wages, personal autonomy, healthcare, leisure and decision-making. The over weaning posture and support given to the male private sector has not been extended to women in the same way. Business and Economic Commissions set up to advise the President are still dominated by males. Trading enterprises have put severe limitations on market opportunities for many impoverished women and has allocated to them the nooks and crevices. The issue is not just the quantity of market opportunities it is also the quality. Many women work in the informal market under conditions of insecurity, are subjected to police harassment and exploitation and have little bargaining power and freedom to organize. At the same time, the commercialization of common property and cutbacks and privatization of healthcare and education have deprived women in poverty of access to affordable resources to improve their conditions. To what extent does ASGISA address these issues and how will it act as a catalyst in changing these critical dimensions?

The growth process suggested in ASGISA will in fact create new patterns of poverty deprivation for women because the issues that create inequality have been embedded and reproduced in ASGISA. In our country, women are responsible for social reproduction and daily household management. Since ASGISA is dependent on labour flexibility, inadvertently, women are the ones who will pay the cost by having to devise coping and survival strategies when household incomes fall and prices rise.

When food prices increase, when user charges for water, healthcare, electricity, and education are introduced and increased, the access of women to these services is affected, especially in a situation of poverty. There has been the casualisation of women’s work to lower unit labour cost, not just in the informal sector but also in the formal sector in terms of outsourcing or subcontracting arrangements. What is happening is that economic growth will depend on increased efficiency becoming a transfer cost subsidized by women from the paid economy to the unpaid work of women at the household level. That second economy you keep talking about consists of millions of women who subsidise the first economy without any fruits of growth accruing to them. Women especially in the rural and peri-urban areas are concentrated in the agricultural sector and the informal sector where the rate of growth and the potential for growth is relatively low to non-existent. In the industrial sectors women are concentrated in the unskilled or semi-skilled categories and have limited access to opportunities and benefits of economic development and growth. Is ASGISA a sufficient tool for standing up to these challenges?

The role of the State in distributing resources along gender, class and race lines to ensure access is critical if there is to be any meaningful developmental benefit for women. These social constructs and lived realties are essential mediating factors. The State is not a private company but a nation requiring government intervention to enable social cohesion, people participation and conscious distribution of the fruits of growth.

* Mohau Pheko and Lebohang Pheko are with the Gender & Trade Network in Africa, which works on international trade providing macroeconomic, trade, and policy literacy on the Africa continent. It works in 18 countries and is linked to the International Gender & Trade Network based in Brazil. Contact 082 6702505/084 881 9327

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