WOMEN AND POVERTY

A HUMAN RIGHTS PERSPECTIVE « EDUCATION AS A LEVERAGE TO ALLEVIATE WOMEN’S POVERTY IN BURUNDI »

Introduction;

Women and Poverty in Burundi;

Education as a Leverage to Alleviate Women’s Poverty in Burundi;

Conclusion

OUTLINE

1.Introduction

 Poverty and especially extreme poverty is a « denial » of basic human rights that right holders need to claim for and duty bearers have to provide. Meanwhile, to claim for your rights, one needs to be aware of that, but in most of our developing countries women constitute the majority of illiterate people who need strong awareness in terms of their rights and process to have their constituencies and member states accountable for that.

One of the key strategies is to promote education for all; gender equity and equality as well as literacy programmes for girls and women who did not get the chance to go through the classic education systems.

As indicated in the 2013-2014 EFA Global Monitoring Report «Treaties and laws worldwide recognize that education is a fundamental human right. In addition, education imparts knowledge and skills that enable people to realize their full potential, and so it becomes a catalyst for the achievement of other development goals. Education reduces poverty, boosts job opportunities and fosters economic prosperity. It also increases people’s chances of leading a healthy life, deepens the foundations of democracy, and changes attitudes to protect the environment and empower women »1.

1 EFA Global Monitoring Report 2013-2014.

2. Women and Poverty in Burundi

Burundi is among the 11 countries from the Great Lakes Region where women comprise at least 51% of the population. One of the biggest challenges for gender equality is mainly due to customary practices, laws and religious belief systems in patriarchal societies that place women in low socio-economic and political positions. At the legislative level, the Family and Civil Code, the Labor Code and the Nationality Code are still discriminatory and unfavorable to women. The most striking examples are the inheritance law and marital status law which are still governed by customs.

The proportion of people whose income is less than 1$ a day is still very high in most of the countries from this region, the situation is even worse in Burundi where the majority of the population live in conditions of extreme poverty. Burundi is currently one of the poorest countries in the world with 67% of the population living below the national poverty line and 81% living on less than $ 1.25 per day. Average real GDP growth over the past three years was 4% and projections for 2014 are around 4.8%. Burundi is a post conflict country where the situation has worsened for women headed households who suffer acutely from incidences of poverty (49.3%) than those headed by males (28.5%).

The 2008 national census of the population revealed that among the 80.2% Burundians who have a property ownership, 62.5% are men and 17.7% are women. The issue of land has become much more exacerbated with the recent massive return of 40.000 people expelled Burundians from Tanzania in early 2013, and an additional 33.000 former refugees who returned end of 2012 with around 78.860 internally displaced populations since 1993 still waiting to access durable solutions and are currently settling in 120 sites throughout the country.2 2 Burundi UN Resident Coordinator Report 2013.

Burundi as most of the countries in the Great Lakes Region has adopted Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) in which gender equality and women’s empowerment are incorporated. Several governments including Burundi have worked with NGO/CSO while incorporating the gender equality componants in to their PRSPs. The Burundi PRSP « CSLP II Cadre Stratégique de Lutte contre la Pauvreté et Relance Economique 2012-2016 » was developed based on the Vision Burundi 2025, and this second strategy paper has been more participatory and gender sensitive though only targeting the goals instead of concrete affirmative actions.

Survey on poverty conducted by UNECA in 2010 in different countries during the poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSP) process confirmed the feminization of poverty; this is partly due to women’s comparatively limited access to productive factors including land, technology, and credit, as well as limited access to decision making processes. The following are some of the challenges indicated by country reports as obstacles to their efforts in addressing women’s poverty and empowerment issues3 :

Lack of /inadequate macroeconomic policies and development strategies that address the needs and efforts of women;

3 The Social, Political and Economic Status of Women in the Great Lakes Region of Africa : report prepared

by UNECA, African Centre for Gender and Social Development Division.

Lack of training in entrepreneurship;

Lack of / inadequate services including credit, agricultural inputs and extension services reinforce the imbalance of household;

Discriminatory values, rules, regulations, practices and

attitudes that prevent women from claiming the right to land, the procedures and requirements for access to bank loans without the prior consent of the husband are all obstacles to the advancement of women;

Monitoring of poverty trends over time is dependent upon the availability

of disaggregated data by sex and location which most African countries

do to possess and are not able to produce to an adequate degree. The

use of consumption and income data collected at the household level

generally does not provide critical insights into the underlying causes

and gendered dimensions of poverty. Another weakness is that, since

such data are not disaggregated by sex, therefore do not capture

inequities within households;

The global economic downturn will have disproportionate impacts on

women as more of them lose jobs and are forced to manage shrinking

household incomes;

While micro-finance credit is useful for addressing immediate household needs, it does not lead to women’s economic empowerment in a transformative manner. Additionally, small-scale women’s businesses tend to be focused on traditional jobs such as sewing and the sale of food items, with limited opportunities for growth;

The impact of the PRSPs and other development plans on the reduction of women’s poverty calls for careful scrutiny, as there is limited evidence to demonstrate that the said gender-aware policies and strategies have resulted in curbing poverty among women in Africa;

While the needs of vulnerable populations and at-risk groups are indeed addressed in development plans, no or limited visibility has been accorded to single mothers, displaced persons, refugees, and others in crisis or post-crisis situations;

Country reports failed to highlight the roles of development

partners and civil society organization in poverty eradication initiatives and how such actions are being co-coordinated with the object of achieving maximum benefits to target groups;

Prevailing high fertility rates in sub-Saharan African countries limits the active participation of women in the labor force, endangers their health and exacerbates poverty ;

Limited access to improved infrastructure increases time spent by women on collecting water and firewood as well as their time commitment to the reproductive economy. There is need for strategies and mechanisms to reduce the workload of women and give them more time to engage in productive activities ;

 Much has to be done to overcome this situation and a strong political will combined with a change in the mindset of our leaders is compulsory to make things happen and allow initiatives undertaken to be gender transformative. Meaningful economic empowerment for women also entails decision making at the household level. In many cases the men make the decisions as heads of households and this limits women’s ability to control assets needed for business and income generating activities.

 

3. Education as a Leverage to Alleviate Women’s Poverty in Burundi

Education is considered by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights not only as a right in itself but also as a means and mechanism of promoting peace and respect for human dignity and fundamental freedoms. Thus, here is where the role of UNESCO comes in. UNESCO’s Constitution requires the Organization to contribute to peace and security through education, science and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms without distinction of race or sex. Women’s poverty needs to be addressed in a human rights’ perspective.

Education and training for girls and women has been recognized by the Beijing Platform for Action as one of the central area around which most of the critical areas of concern could be attained. Provision of universal primary education cannot be addressed separately from gender parity, as it is one way of empowering young girls to be able to fairly compete in life. Functional literacy has to be scaled up in order to ensure adult women education and empowerment. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), the percentage of women’s literacy in the countries of the Great Lakes Region is remarkably low, as illustrated in the following table.

N° Country Men Women1 Angola4 82.9% 54.2%2 Burundi5 67.3% 52.2%3 Central African republic6 64.8% 33.5%4 Congo7 90.5% 79.0%5 Democratic Republic of Congo8 80.9% 54.1%6 Kenya 9 77.7% 70.2%7 Rwanda10 71.4% 59.8%8 Sudan11 71.1% 51.8%9 Tanzania12 77.5% 62.2%10 Ugannda13 76.8% 57.7%11 Zambia14 76.3% 59.8%

[1] Source http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=eng&BR_Country=240[1] Source http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=eng&BR_Country=1080[1] Source http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=eng&BR_Country=1400[1] Source http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=eng&BR_Country=1780[1] Source http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=eng&BR_Country=8920[1] Source http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=eng&BR_Country=4040[1] Source http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=eng&BR_Country=6460[1] Source http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=eng&BR_Country=7360[1] Source http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=198&IF_Language=eng&BR_Country=7620[1] Source http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=eng&BR_Country=8000[1] Source http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/document.aspx?ReportId=121&IF_Language=eng&BR_Country=8940

Africa and Gender Equality are the 2 Priorities of UNESCO’s Mid Term Strategy. Gender Equality has been a global priority of UNESCO since 2008. Gender Equality is a fundamental human right and a necessary condition for the achievement of internationally agreed development objectives. The UNESCO Priority Gender Equality Action Plan 2014-2021 provides an operational framework for the implementation of programmes aiming at gender equity and equality through its 5 fields of competence, Education being one of the core priorities. Efforts are being undertaken to contribute to the betterment of African populations and especially women who have over the past decades suffered a lot from gender inequalities in terms of opportunities and participation.

During the 32nd General Conference (October 2003), UNESCO was called upon to strengthen its actions in favor of women and children living in conflict zones. Further to this call and in pursuance of the objectives of facilitating social transformations based on the universal values of justice, freedom and human dignity, the Social and Human Sciences Sector (SHS) initiated a long process for setting up a Regional Research and Documentation Center on Women, Gender and Peace Building in the Great Lakes Region. This Centre is based in Kinshasa- Democratic Republic of Congo.

The proposed Center will promote the Organization’s objectives by contributing to the development of policy oriented research and research based policies and programs to increase women’s participation and roles in reconstruction and development processes. The establishment of the Center is recognized as a priority action under the Major Program for the Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO, as adopted by the 34th General Conference in 2007.

The proposed institution will also contribute to the promotion of the human rights of women, gender equal opportunities and the equal participation of women in all spheres as is called for in the UNESCO Strategy on Human Rights.

In the case of Burundi, the constraints on women’s participation have to do with cultural perceptions on women’s roles and the household division of labor that put undue responsibilities on women. The small number of educated women at the secondary and tertiary levels also poses a constraint on women’s potential for political leadership. Burundi’s Constitution provides for a 30% quota which favors women’s political participation with currently 32% in the National Assembly, 46% in the Senate and 32% to Communal Councils.

Meanwhile, there is a big challenge remaining as other government institutions are excluded from this mechanism including local government. At the hill council level, only 17% of women are represented and only 136 women are Chiefs of their constituencies against 2.615 men.15

No country in the world can achieve real and sustainable development if more than 50% of its population is left behind.

15CSLP II Burundi

The empowerment of women requires diverse and multifaceted actions at several levels: institutional, community, but also towards women themselves who, because of ignorance contribute in some ways to slow down their development and well being. In Burundi, women are the poorest among the poor although they are the ones who produce especially in rural areas where 90% of the population live from agriculture. There is a strong need of awareness among the populations be men or women to allow women have access to and control over resources and the fruits of their sweat. Household gender equality has to be addressed urgently.

The role of education to advance people’s perceptions and thinking in order to shape the 21st century human being caring and respectful of the rights of any individual is a MUST. As described in “Faire et Défaire le Genre/Make and Undo Gender” a presentation by Professor Judith Butler, University of California, we do not build its own kind, it is always constructed with or for someone else, even when the other is imaginary. Gender dimension falls within the social and cultural constructs, and over time humans make and break these constructions. This brings some hope that over time and thanks to education, Burundian populations’ attitudes will evolve positively and lead to gender equity and equality a living reality.

Needless to demonstrate that education is one of the priority actions in order to equip communities with women who know better their rights and claim for them and, men who know well the limits of their own rights in view of respecting the rights of women. In addition, gender studies with disaggregated data can inform policy makers and help guide them in adopting egalitarian laws and review discriminatory laws against women.

As indicated in the tables below, over the past two decades, considerable progress has been made in terms of parity in education at least for the pre primary, primary and lower secondary education though considerable bottlenecks do exist at the upper secondary school level and tertiary education .16

 16 Bureau de la Planification et des Statistiques de l’Education : Indicateurs 2010/2011 sur l’Enseignement au Burundi, Novembre 2011

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

16000

18000

40493287 3537

6450 6555

0

88659639

12407

15820

Education in Public Schools from 2001 to 2010

Elèves FElèves MElèves F+M

years

Numbers

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

500000

1000000

1500000

2000000

2500000

806214880252

9529791022467

13093871473893

15855391720287

18293851922424

Between 2001 and 2010 the ratio girls/boys has increased

Année (au 15 novembre)Elèves FElèves MElèves F+M

Years

Numbers

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

50000

100000

150000

200000

250000

300000

350000

400000

100799 108438132062

146813165310

187515212080

250478

298.35

334191

Secondary lower and upper levels and Educational training schools

Elèves FElèves MElèves F+M

Years

Numbers

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

4625

6080 6411 6502 6409

81018699 8237

9504

11597

Technical Education

Elèves FElèves MElèves F+M

Years

Numbers

1 2 3 4 5 6 70

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

5001

63516976 7167

9505

1065510152 10502 10207 10109

11265

Tertiary Education Between 1998 and 2009 the ratio girls/boys

Etudiants FEtudiants MEtudiants F+M

Years

Numbers

Univers

ité du

Burundi

Ecole N

ormale

Supér

ieure

Institu

t Nati

onal d

e San

té Pub

lique

Univers

ité Hope

Afric

a

Univers

ité. de

s Gran

ds Lac

sISG

E

Univers

ité du

Lac T

angany

ika

Univers

ité Mart

in Luth

er King

Univers

ité de

Ngozi

Grand S

émina

ire. B

uja

Univers

ité Lu

mière d

e Buju

mbura

Univers

ité de

Mwaro Total

02000400060008000

1000012000140001600018000

Gender Disparities in Tertiary Education in Bu-rundi: Private and Public Universities combined

1999-2000 F1999-2000 G1999-2000 T1999-2000 %F2003-2004 F2003-2004 G2003-2004 T2003-2004 %F

Universities

Effectifs

Gender equality can help to reduce the root causes of poverty and vulnerability and contribute as well to sustainable growth and development, for this education is vital. Most of the basic indicators on the commonly dimensions of women empowerment and potential operationalization in the household, at the community level and in broader arenas will be improved through education and only if women are fully aware of their rights, their potential and strongly strive for that.As we are talking about women’s poverty, on the economic dimension, an educated woman is more likely to be in a position to have control over the household income, access to employment, credit and markets and ownership of assets.

The women in higher positions should ensure promotion of women’s economic interests in macroeconomic policies, state and federal budgets for the well being of the populations in general and girls and women in particular through affirmative actions if need be. Of course; a strong political will is a great enabler for these social transformations to happen. I can recall the case of Rwanda with its amazing success stories with regard to women participation and economic development.

4. Conclusion

Ensuring education for women would open doors for their access to many more other political, civil and economic rights. In order to achieve gender equality, it is vital to move beyond goals which only set targets and engage into processes which really empower women as agents of change.

Better access to gender statistics particularly on poverty, income source and labor force/occupation is required to allow for clearer understanding of the inequalities and trends and to facilitate further analysis and well informed gender transformative policies to be adopted by the government.

Such statistics, monitored over time could allow a better understanding of the inequalities and enable identification of priority areas of intervention. In addition, absence of gender responsive indicators in some sectors makes it difficult to assess progress in mainstreaming efforts. Mainstreaming gender concerns in the overall national poverty reduction strategy document does not guarantee action will be taken. More effort is needed during formulation and implementation of sector policies and plans, as well as in the execution of the budget.

Concrete gender transformative actions need to be undertaken to close the big gap with the feminization of poverty in Burundi as well as in most of the Sub Saharan African countries.

Equal participation and opportunities for men and women in all the spheres of the nation’s life from down to top is the only sustainable solution to eradicate gender inequalities and women’s poverty.

Together, men and women must be the agents of social transformations within their communities and benefit from inclusive sustainable development. Moreover; the individual and collective learning and education process must be undertaken on a longer period and for sure supported by a strong political will and gender transformative institutional frameworks.

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