Facilitator, Ms XC Makasi (Chairperson of the Steering Committee for the Women’s Parliament)
Steering Committee members and the Women’s Caucus
Representatives of the Presidency and the Executive
Speakers and Deputy Speakers of the National Assembly and the NCOP
House Chairpersons and Chief Whips of the National Assembly and NCOP
Portfolio Committee and Select Committee members
Representatives of Community Based Organisations, the NYDA, the Commission on Gender Equality and organisations representing persons with disabilities
Representatives from provinces
Ladies and gentleman
Comrades
1. Introduction
I count it as an honour to be invited here to address this Parliament of Women, and to share some ideas with you. Thank you for the invitation.
Globally, women produce more than half of the food that is grown and are primarily responsible for preparing, storing, and processing food. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, in many countries, 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. In South Africa, we recognise that women in rural society and especially in farming have always been an “invisible” work force. Too little has been done to fully recognise women's role on farms and in rural communities - legally, economically, technologically, and in the statistics. I hope we are beginning to address this situation.
Over and above the legacy of apartheid laws, gender inequality in South Africa was and remains further entrenched through cultural practices, customary laws, policies and legislation, and institutions where women by virtue of their gender are disadvantaged in relation to men in their access to, control over, and use of land.
As the main implementer of land reform in South Africa, the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform is guided by constitutional and policy imperatives to redress gender inequalities in land distribution. In addition, the Department is guided by South Africa’s Ministry for Women, Children and People with Disabilities, the National Gender Machinery and by international instruments such as the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform for Action. Some progress have already been made by the department in adopting a gender-sensitive approach through: development of the Gender Policy Framework Guidelines, the hosting of gender awareness workshops and the development of gender planning tools.
Government policies and legislation can either reinforce gender inequalities or advance greater gender equality. We know that rural women perform a variety of tasks, including general agricultural work and raising livestock, as well as maintaining the household and family. In addition to these tasks, they procure water and domestic fuel. Given the importance and variety of these tasks, rural women are important bearers of knowledge related to the sustainable use of natural resources and therefore their development requirements need to be mainstreamed into rural development and land reform policies.
2. The Case for Land Rights for Women
In the department we have drawn on debates about women’s land rights in Asia to say that there are four main arguments why women need independent land rights:
- Welfare
- Efficiency
- Equality, and
- Empowerment
Welfare: because land serves as security against poverty and a means to meet basic needs. Land is a productive asset which significantly impacts on women’s health and that of their children. Land can provide food security as well as an income.
Efficiency: because giving women title to land can increase credit worthiness providing access to technology and other inputs which increase agricultural productivity.
Equality: independent land rights enhance women’s position and challenge patriarchy in the society and in the home. It is part of the struggle for gender equity.
Empowerment: with land ownership comes not only economic rights – the welfare argument – but also social and political influence. Women are empowered to further change their conditions for the better. So a reform which allows women to address immediate needs for food security – may form a platform from which they can begin to organise and struggle for strategic objectives of gender equity.
3. Policies to Empower Rural Women: Measuring the impact of programmes on gender parity
For the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, in relation to the mainstreaming of gender equity in the department’s policies and programmes, the starting point is to measure the impact of our programmes on opportunities for women – and persons living with disabilities. After all, if you cannot measure it, you do not know what impact your programmes have.
It is the same debate in relation to combating racial inequalities. There are those who say South Africa is now a non-racial democracy. So why do we still talk about race: why do we still collect race-based data. The answer is simple: so that we can measure the impact of our programmes on addressing the legacy of racial discrimination and inequality. And the argument is the same in relation to gender – and disability.
So as the department we have established a Directorate for Women, Children and Persons Living with Disabilities with the express mandate to address issues of equity and inclusion within the department and to interrogate our programmes with this in mind.
The directorate has developed a gender analytical tool, indicators for monitoring and evaluation and a checklist for Land Reform programmes – I will report on the outcome of their work later – as well as developing a gender responsive budgeting framework.
The directorate is also developing a framework for the rights of older persons. On a lighter note – this is an area where increasingly, as time goes on, I find I have to declare an interest.
Let me give you a flavour of the gender checklist that we are developing and the key questions that we ask in the social assessment of rural development and land reform projects:
- Who are the target beneficiaries?
- we need to disaggregate the beneficiaries according to sex
- we need to talk to women as well as men.
- Are women visible in the sector of the intended enterprise?
- determine the gender division of labour in genera.
- Are women’s needs in the sector the same as those of men?
- How might the project affect women? Is the project likely to have the same positive and negative effects on women and men?
· Identify, if possible, legal, cultural, or religious constraints on women’s potential participation in the project.
In relation to training, skills development and mentoring, the checklist asks questions such as the following:
- What training might help women benefit from the changes?
- Can training be scheduled for times that suit and fit women’s other responsibilities?
- What training can be provided to women to increase their influence and control over decision making (e.g. training in the maintenance and repair of agricultural equipment)?
- Can the project include training in small-business management, accounting and entrepreneurial skills, and marketing, in support of rural women’s income generating activities?
We are at an early stage of implementation, but I can assure you that gender equity and profiling is at the heart of the department’s flagship programme for rural development – the CRDP (Comprehensive Rural Development Programme). Thus, in the nine CRDP pilot sites, a gender sensitive needs assessment was carried out to guide implementation.
Similarly, land reform projects are sensitive to the need for women empowerment. I will give you the statistics later. But as an example, in the Free State we have trained women in the commercial production of lavender for medicinal and cosmetic purposes. Let me hasten to add, that in the Free State we also support women farmers who specialise in red meat production.
4. Current Statistics
Let me give you a sense of the proportion of women affected by land reform programmes:
- In the period April 2008 to March 2009, out of 9,217 beneficiaries of land redistribution and tenure reform, 4,030 were women – 44%.
- In the period April 2009 to March 2010 – we pick up the pace – and out of 11,362 beneficiaries, 5,795 are women – 51%.
- The latest figures for the shorter period – April 2010 to January 2011 – indicate that out of 1,582 beneficiaries, 758 are women – 48%.
Let me turn to look at the figures for successful land restitution claims:
- In the period April 2008 to March 2009 out of 29,762 households with successful claims, 13,725 were female-headed households – 46%.
- In the period April 2009 to March 2010 out of 9,294 households with successful restitution claims, 4,177 were female-headed households – 45%.
- The latest figures for the shorter period – April 2010 to January 2011 – indicate that out of 8,658 households with successful claims, 4,412 were female headed households – 51%.
5. Rural Development and National Rural Youth Service Corps (NARYSEC)
I want to conclude on a positive note and share with you information about the Department’s lead project NARYSEC, which is at the heart of the CRDP. As a Department, we have said that we cannot have a successful rural development strategy, which leaves the youth behind. We are all aware of the figures presented by the Minister of Further and Higher Education regarding youth unemployment. It is even worse amongst rural youth. So NARYSEC aims to recruit from every rural municipal ward. So far almost 10,000 youths are undergoing training in the first cohort. The aim is to now massif NARYSEC so that we make a real impact on the lives of rural communities.
Just a word about the NARYSEC programme: this is a rural youth-based skills development and job creation programme. Emphasis is on character development, community service, personal discipline and artisanal and construction skills. The youths is provided with skills related to the needs of their rural communities, identified through community and household profiling, carried out by them. Current priorities are construction skills, disaster management, and records management. After training, they will be deployed in reconstructing and developing villages and rural communities across the country, some as workers, and others as trainee-entrepreneurs and para-professionals. The NARYSEC will be the cutting edge of rural development.
One final aspect of NARYSEC I need to share with you:
- 50% of recruits from each ward must be female, and
- 25% must be persons living with disabilities.
Out of respect for this gathering, I have focused my remarks on gender equity, and I have spared you the full official speech on rural development and land reform. However, I would like to end on a more general note.
If, as we believe, the land is central to national liberation and future development, a number of questions must be posed and debated:
- How do we unlock the economic opportunities both within agriculture and the non-farm rural economy for disadvantaged and emerging individuals and communities?
- Who should be the beneficiaries of the land reform?
- As a minimum, as part of a broad strategy for rural development, we need to do the following:
- secure the position of farm workers and farm dwellers against evictions and improve their lives
- revitalise subsistence agriculture in the former ‘reserves’ (‘tribal homelands’)
- rapidly promote black commercial agriculture; whilst mindful that white commercial agriculture will continue to play a crucial role in ensuring food security.
All of which have profound implications for gender relations in the countryside.
Clearly the role of the state is crucial here – for which we need not apologise. If we look to history, the South African state has always played a central role in structuring property, race, gender and class relations in the countryside – hitherto to promote white farmers as they competed with their black counter-parts for labour, land, water, grasing rights, other resources and markets.
Are there any lessons in this history to assist us to support small subsistence and emerging farmers in our current context? We need to debate these issues.
In 2012 the ruling ANC will be celebrating its centenary. Historical accounts indicate that the imminent imposition of the 1913 Land Act that dispossessed the native Africans of their land and livelihoods was the trigger that led to the formation of the South African Native National Congress in 1912.
It is inconceivable that after a century of struggle, and after 17 years of democracy, social relations in the countryside can continue to mirror the values of segregation and apartheid. The broad mission remains to restore land, human dignity, and respect to all South Africans – male and female.
I thank you.
Source: Department of Rural Development and Land Reform
