Women’s issues must stay on the agenda beyond August

Women’s Month has come and gone. However, despite the hashtags, marches and discussions, women continue to endure extreme levels of poverty, inequality, unemployment and personal insecurity on a daily basis.

All this puts women and their families in existential precariousness, an unenviable terrain of second-class citizenship. For this reason, we need not pause and wait for August 2024 to re-engage with women’s issues. The women’s agenda must remain firmly on the priority list of government, business and civil society alike.

This week, heads of state and government from around the world met at the UN General Assembly in New York to discuss, among other issues, the implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Gender equality and women’s empowerment are integral to each of the 17 goals. Their realisation will, in turn, take us closer to achieving economic inclusion for current and future generations.

Exactly 74% of the National Development Plan (NDP) has a bearing on gender equality; a welcome symbiotic convergence. Its implementation will contribute to the global women agenda. With only seven years until 2030, we have our work cut out for us.

So far, South Africa is not doing well on the implementation of five of the goals. We have moderately improved on 10 of them but deteriorated on one, and we do not have sufficient information on the reduction of inequality.

With the highest levels of poverty, inequality and unemployment in the world and a Gini coefficient of 63, we should keep our eyes firmly focused on this goal.

Most concerning is that we have deteriorated in the provision of quality education, a goal that holds the key to moving our country forward in earnest. The voice of women must unapologetically grow louder, insisting on the implementation of programmes that aim to make a difference.

The South African Women in Dialogue (SAWID), an independent, non-partisan and inclusive civil society organisation that works to improve the status of women, marks its 20th anniversary this year.

Guided by the principle ‘Nothing about us without us’, SAWID has consistently asserted the right of women to sit at the decision-making table to co-create solutions that change their lives. The equitable representation of women in public and private sector decision-making bodies must remain an objective on which we should not compromise. After all, women are home keepers, providers and protectors.

Gender equality can enhance economic productivity, improve development outcomes for the next generation, and make institutions and policies more representative. Why, then, are more efforts, speed and resources not exerted to remove the obstacles that impede women from taking their rightful places in society?

The further deterioration of socioeconomic conditions as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic makes the answer to this question more urgent. At the micro-level, households and women in particular have been under severe stress even before the pandemic.

The post-Covid period therefore presents an opportunity to assert a gendered development agenda involving the government, business, labour and broader civil society.

We must be more strategic about putting our efforts into initiatives that create value. Partnerships are crucial because, all too often, we duplicate efforts, compete for limited resources from the same sources, and therefore diminish the development agenda. If the women’s agenda is to gain traction, we must do things differently.

We should insist that the government, business and civil society significantly increase investments to close the gender gap and strengthen support for institutions that work towards gender equality at all levels. The government must take the lead in mainstreaming gender programmes systematically and on a sustainable basis.

An area that deserves special mention is funding support for women’s organisations and other non-governmental organisations working to achieve gender equality. Though a small percentage of women’s organisations are beneficiaries of increased funding, a greater number are struggling to secure funds and sustain their core activities, according to recent research by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Most of the funding has been for HIV/Aids work and the fight against violence against women. Laudable as this is, the women’s agenda is far larger and these areas.

According to the World Bank’s 2022 report, the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) is the most unequal region in the world. While there has been some progress in recent years, inequality has remained almost stagnant in the most unequal countries. Alas, women and children bear the brunt of inequality.

SAWID does not have all the answers. But we have the correct diagnosis, the will, courage and commitment to do what needs to be done by working with government, business and civil society to make tangible strides towards addressing extreme levels of poverty, inequality and unemployment.

As for women, we must constantly remember the words of Frederick Douglass, the African American abolitionist: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.”

Do not wait for another August to demand gender equality. Do it now. Demand a seat at the decision-making table and be part of co-creating solutions that change your lives.

* Mayatula is a Trustee of the South African Women in Dialogue