Women

New partners in fighting poverty? 6 Mar 2008, The Times of Zambia
If Zambia and Africa as a whole is looking for partners in combating hunger and poverty, they need look no further. They can find credible partners in rural women. Research shows that rural women, the majority of them farmers, are crucial partners in the fight against hunger and poverty.

Indeed, there have been various commitments and agreements, to enhance the status of rural women and promote gender equality in agriculture and rural development.

The millennium development goals (MDGs) on reducing hunger and poverty by 2015 recognises that in rural areas, where 70 per cent of the poor live, women's equitable access to resources is key to national development.

As the world celebrates this year's International Women's Day, one wonders the significance of this day that seems only to concern the urban womenfolk.

The fight against poverty and hunger will come to nothing unless women, especially those in rural areas are placed at the heart of the process.

Despite all these initiatives and campaigns to better the lives of both rural and urban women, rural women remain voiceless in decision-making processes and are rarely taken into account when it comes to designing, implementing and monitoring agriculture development policies and programmes.

There is nothing posing a greater threat to the fight against hunger in Zambia because of the vast natural resources available in the country.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), about 30 million Africans face starvation. Half of this being in Southern Africa and 50 per cent of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa where Zambia is goes hungry.

Clearly, the need to develop policies and strategies that would shape an enabling environment for the advancement in rural women cannot be over emphasised.

Knowing that the majority entirely relies on agriculture, paramount among these is a comprehensive programme to train women in innovative agricultural practices that will boost productivity.

Access to production-related services and labour-saving technologies will free them from tedious manual farming and go a long way to increase their harvest.

Rural women and rural farmers are even more essential in the globalisation process. As key players in their homes, women need to be empowered to extend their versatile role to the local level.

Despite Africa's close commercial and industrial ties with developed countries in Europe and America, Africa remains poor and one of the least developed continents despite having a wide array of natural resources.

One reason for the imbalance is that presentations of trade means African exports, particularly agricultural produce, command low prices and cannot compete on the world market.

Over the years, farming in Zambia has been based on the weather, any climate change be it bad or good - has an impact on the harvest.

This has contributed a great deal to food crisis in Zambia and many African countries.

Processing and storage of perishable food crops is yet another challenge for not only Zambia but also many other African governments.

Most food is left to rot when in seasons for lack of the technical know-how to preserve it.

Bad roads in rural areas matter too. Yet women may just need trucks to cart their produce from the farm to buying centres.

Women farmers in Gwembe and Lusitu work from sunrise to sunset, only to be forced by circumstances to sell at throw-away price to middlemen from Lusaka and Monze.

For Daina Matongo, the main problem is that half her tomatoes and other foodstuffs go to waste because of poor roads, lack of storage facilities and lack of a market place.

The same tomatoes cost a small fortune when they reach Lusaka because of the bad roads and poor storage facilities.

"We toil for nothing, and we are still waiting for the day when the Government is going to give us the technology to preserve our tomatoes and other foodstuff so that we would not go hungry when certain foodstuff are off season," said Mrs Matongo.

Mrs Matongo says unless women in rural areas were empowered with farming technology and equipment, alleviating poverty and hunger would still be a dream.

She said the zeal for rural women to empower their families was being undermined by lack of facilities where to sell their farm produce.

Marketing their farm produce is another headache. Even after working tirelessly with a hope that when the farm products are ready for sale, their lives would change for the better but this dream is a non-starter.

This is because very little and sometimes nothing gets sold at a reasonable price ideal to make their lives better.

For another farmer of Lusitu in Southern Province, Moddy Mudenda, marketing her produce is another hassle.

She is at the mercy of middlemen from the city of Lusaka who buy her watermelons for as low as K3000 each.

"I wish someone would tell me what to do with my farm produce. I work very hard with my hoe and cutlass all day together with my children but at the end of the day, only less than a quarter gets sold," she said.

These women also live in hope that the Government will fulfill its promise to give them assistance either in monetary or equipment form to ensure that whatever they produce yield the intended results to fight hunger and poverty.

High levels of political will and resources is highly required to put an end to gender inequalities.

The theme for this years International Women's Day, 'Investing in Women and Girls' offers a good opportunity for Zambia and other African governments to pay particular attention to rural women and their contribution to development.

The gathering of gender-specific statistics in recent years has confirmed two facts: the majority of poor people in the world are women, and these women are overwhelmingly responsible for feeding hungry men and children, as well as themselves.

They grow, gather and catch the family meals, bring home water and wood, and prepare and cook the food.

Where the rural poor get enough to eat, it is most often largely through the efforts, skills and knowledge of mothers, wives, sisters and daughters.

Despite this, these women are often the last to gain access to resources, training and financial loans.

In many countries, the plight of rural women is worsening, as young and able-bodied men leave for the cities in search of work. The women left behind struggle to raise families and manage farms alone. Today in some regions of Africa, women head 60 percent of households.

Investing in rural women means investing in food security.

Research indicates that investment activities aimed in various ventures to better the lives of rural women.

Investment in educating women and girls has the highest rate of return of any possible type of investment in developing nations.

Its results include higher productivity, slower population growth, reduced child mortality rates and increased awareness and use of environmental protection measures.

Globally, women produce more than half the food that is grown and are primarily responsible for preparing, storing and processing food.

In many countries, however, women are the last family members to eat, and their nutritional needs are met only when and if the men and children have had enough.

Rural women in developing countries play a crucial role as custodians of genetic diversity and related knowledge on plant varieties and their uses hence the need to invest in them.