Future strategic goals and objectives
Understanding poverty and the status of rural women
Improving women's access to productive resources and services
Improving women's access to employment and income-earning opportunities
Namibia faces the complex challenges of redressing social and economic imbalances and forging a climate of democracy in which all are willing and able to participate. In Namibia, many leaders have recognized the situation of struggle and inequality of women. Greater attention is being given to the role of women in development. The country has demonstrated its commitment to providing better health and education services and to improving conditions in the workplace. The Constitution, together with ongoing legal reform and awareness, is helping to create an environment conducive to women's rights.
However, little of this progress has reached rural women, who continue to struggle under heavy workloads, food insecurity, and unequal access to economic resources and opportunities and social services. Rural women are almost entirely absent from public life and their concerns are underrepresented in the organs of government. That women farmers constitute the primary food producers and caretakers of children must be recognised. Indeed, taking the needs of women farmers into account is a matter of efficiency as well as equity. Programmes are more likely to succeed if women participate. Improving the food security, productivity and well-being of rural households can reduce the need for costly food aid, curative health care and other crisis interventions.
Thus, rural women must be specifically targeted in order to improve their economic and legal status and, in turn, to empower them to participate in development and change. As identified at a consultative workshop on Women and Agriculture, a range of short-term and long-term strategies are needed to promote the advancement of women farmers.138 While some strategies offer concrete actions, others target changing attitudes and increasing awareness.
(1) Affirmative action legislation is expected to be passed by the end of 1994. This measure should be used to ensure that women are better represented in decision-making positions. There should be provision for greater representation of women as members of parliament and on the regional and national councils. Women's involvement in national and sectoral decision-making can help incorporate gender in planning and can yield long-term results in changing attitudes and priorities.
(2) Although some planners and civil servants have received training in gender awareness, there is still a lack of understanding of gender issues. Many government officials and leaders continue to equate gender only with feminism or see it as a woman's issue. Campaigns to create greater gender awareness are needed to ensure that both men and women take responsibility for advancing women's status.
(3) NGOs, CBOs and the private sector must also be lobbied to include more women in management positions and in decision-making bodies, such as boards and committees.
(4) Educated people and those in positions of authority must set an example by recognizing and respecting women as equals.
(1) The Department of Women Affairs must be strengthened as a mouthpiece. It should have representation in the Cabinet and have an official presence in the 13 regions.
(2) Women's organizations remain urban-based. Professionals working in the rural areas should help mobilize rural women into pressure groups.
(3) Farmers associations or affiliated branches of women farmers should be promoted and supported.
(4) Rural institutions often cater to interest groups and serve the influential and wealthy. Skills in strategic planning are needed to ensure that rural institutions clearly target and aim to serve women and other marginalised groups.
(5) The National Planning Commission should encourage donors and NGOs to be more evenly distributed among the regions. Although some progress has been made, formal mechanisms are needed to improve coordination among all NGO, private sector, and government institutions working with rural people. These networks should be used to advocate on behalf of the rural poor and to communicate the needs of rural women into policy processes.
(1) The country must urgently repeal/amend discriminatory laws. Women should be able to obtain credit and loans in their own right, marriage laws should be amended, and there must be guarantees that women can have equal access and secure rights to land. This process should be expedited through the following strategies:
A. Greater financial and technical support to the Women and Law Reform Committee could expedite the process of review and recommendations.
B. Women should be encouraged to challenge unconstitutional laws in the courts in order to set legal precedents.
C. Namibia's capacity to facilitate legal reform is stretched. A specially-recruited legal drafter is needed to translate recommendations into legal bills.
(1) Socio-economic research is needed to better understand the causes and effects of poverty on rural women and their families.
A. Research by the government and by institutes such as the Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit should assess the impact of macro-economic and sectoral policies on women.
B. There is a need for gender-disaggregated statistics within all Ministries and among non-governmental organizations. The upcoming National Comprehensive Agricultural Survey, to be conducted jointly by the CSO and MAWRD, should include gender-based questions and analysis.
C. Research should also evaluate the power-relations and processes at the household level. Topics include: the fluidity of household composition; division of labour within the household; decision-making processes; the changes in interests in power in productive, domestic and reproductive spheres, and patterns of resource allocation within and between households.
D. Greater information on the informal coping strategies of rural women should inform interventions designed to improve access to credit, technology, employment and services.
E. Longitudinal studies are needed to monitor the status of rural poor women over time. Oral histories of women are also an important tool for understanding cultural attitudes, social changes, and the means by which women survive.
F. The role of women in natural resource use and management also needs to be addressed.
(1) Agricultural services should be further decentralised to reach out to the needy, who are not able to reach Agricultural and Rural Development Centres.
(2) Extension officers should undertake agricultural needs assessments of women farmers. Extension staff in agriculture, veterinary services, forestry and nature conservation should receive in-service training on participatory and gender-aware development approaches.
(3) Many services stress high technological inputs, such as tractor services. Women farmers often cannot afford these services or are not reached by them. Agricultural services can both improve local participation and improve yields by focusing on simple, low cost interventions, such as improved seed bed preparation and straight line sowing and planting.
(4) Namibia must develop an appropriate technology base for women's agricultural and domestic tasks. Technologies of use to Namibian women include line makers and weeding tools, simple hand or animal powered mills, and improved food storage. Information and experiences with technology should be disseminated to community groups, NGOs, and extension staff through newsletters and workshops. The Rural Development Centre in the North is a likely candidate for this role.
(5) On-farm teals should women farmers. Women should be involved in research on and distribution of improved crop varieties.
(6) Veterinary services must be targeted to women farmers.
(7) Extension officers have observed that women are more likely to attend and participate in meetings when it is conducted by a woman. MAWRD and other Ministries with extension or field work staff should increase the number of women extension officers. This will entail the following:
A. Working conditions must be conducive for women to be fieldworkers. Decentralising the agricultural services will reduce the distances which extension officers must travel to meet farmers. Primarily seen as an urban issue, the provision of child care facilities at the extension officer's workplace is also essential.
B. The agricultural colleges should implement affirmative action enrolment policies. Experience and skills should be taken into account for those women who, due to pregnancy, marriage, or economic reasons, did not obtain the required educational qualifications. Faculty and staff must be sensitized to the cultural and social obstacles faced by women students.
C. Girls should be encouraged to consider agriculture and environment professions and bursary programmes should assist young women to pursue higher education in agriculture, forestry and natural resources. Extension officers, agricultural teachers and even farmers can serve as mentors to girls in agricultural subjects.
(8) Extension officers and NGOs working in rural areas should utilise rural development promoters, many of whom are women, as a liaison to local villages.
(9) Credit unions, NGOs and MAWRD, currently developing a rural bank, should exchange ideas and develop creative savings and loan schemes appropriate to the needs of rural women. A campaign should urge rural women to save in banks, post offices or local schemes.
(10) Pilot programmes should assess the viability of resource-sharing initiatives, such as programmes with draught-animal power, or group ownership of breeding animals.
(11) MAWRD should implement gender-based record-keeping and evaluations to assess if agricultural services, inputs and small loans schemes are reaching women.
(12) Rural institutions should Improve linkages with the Southern African Development community so that Namibia can learn from the problems and successes of promoting women farmers in neighbouring countries.
(1) Women's productive work in agriculture and other 'informal" spheres should be recognized in national statistics and policies.
(2) Initiatives to market agricultural produce and livestock production should incorporate rural women.
(3) Income-generation activities are often used to mobilize women who have limited experience or inclination to work in groups. Programmes to support income-generation should also work with individual women to develop financially-viable enterprises.
(4) Gender-sensitive, labour-based projects, such as the road construction project in the North, should be replicated elsewhere in the country. Except for short-term, drought relief programmes, payment should be in cash, not food.
(5) National development planning should give priority to agribusiness and off-farm enterprises which will create wage-earning opportunities for rural women.
