Ethiopia: Minister Highlights Need of Integration to Meet MDGs

Biruk Girma, Addis Ababa

East African integration is crucial to successfully attain the UN-set Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Ethiopian State Minister of Finance and Economic Development said on Monday.

In his opening speech to the 12th meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts (ICE) which kicked off here at the UNCC, State Minister Mekonnen said the issue of integration was of a high priority as far as Ethiopia was concerned.

He said the country was content the issue was in spotlight at the regional meeting.

“Topical issues of financial sector reforms, regional integration, NEPAD All these are topics of great concern to the sub region,” he told participants who come from 13 Sub-Regional offices for Eastern Africa (SRO-EA) member countries of the UNECA.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight goals to be achieved by 2015 that respond to the world’s main development challenges.

They are drawn from the actions and targets contained in the Millennium Declaration that was adopted by 189 nations-and signed by 147 heads of state and governments during the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000.

Africa’s longstanding recognition of the needs and benefits of regional integration has spawned the proliferation of regional economies and protocols across the continent, according to ECA.

The 12th meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts (ICE) which will deliberate on the integration of the east African region within the context of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The meeting will particularly explore on the social and economic conditions for the integration of the East African region in such a way that it boosts possibilities of meeting the UN-set Millennium Development Goals, (MDGs).

The meeting will also define the modalities for accelerating the achievement of those objectives through regional integration programmes.

The two-day meeting is being held under the theme: Meeting sub-regional challenges in the 21st century: Regional Integration and Financing for Development towards the Achievement of MDGs” In her opening speech to the regional meeting, UNECA Deputy Executive Secretary Lalla Aicha Ben Barka said the theme was very pertinent for most of African countries grappling with the challenges of meeting MDGs by 2015.

“What your theme brings to the table is how regional integration can play a role in accelerating the pace of Eastern African countries to achieve the MDGs.” She told participants.

Burundi, Comoros, D.R Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda are the member states of the UNECA’s Eastern Africa Sub regional office (EA-SRO).

Delegates of high-level experts in areas of planning and finance from the member countries, and representatives to regional and international organizations attended the regional meeting.

Zambia: Adult Education Lacking Policy Direction

Nebert Mulenga

THE absence of appropriate infrastructure and educational materials for adult literacy in Zambia is now forcing many determined adult learners to go into formal schools where they have to mix with their own children.

Clara Moyo, 50, a resident of Chipata town in Eastern Province, stopped school at a tender age. She got married as an illiterate person, gave birth to 11 children and in the process, had three grand children. But in 2006, she made a drastic decision to go back to school!

“I stopped school when I was young because I didn’t know the goodness of education. But when I was elected chairperson (of some local organisation) I had problems addressing meetings because of language barrier,” she recounts.

“So I went to Katopola basic school in 2006 and started grade eight. I am now at Chipata Day high school in grade 10. My two boys are in grade nine, the other one is in grade 12. We are all learning together as a family.”

Ms Moyo is not the only Zambian keen on pursuing education in old age; there are thousands of other elderly women and men across Zambia wishing to better their living standards through attaining higher education.

But they are often inhibited by the lack of supportive policies and facilities to promote adult literacy.

Zambia is party to several international instruments on promoting education, including the global Education For All (EFA) goals, whose main emphasis is on raising literate populations through sound early childhood care education and development, basic education, and adult literacy.

But Zambia has no adult literacy policy in place!

Only now is the Government getting to formulate the policy that would ultimately regulate the provision of informal education to the growing numbers of illiterate adults.

About 35 per cent of adult Zambians, especially in rural areas, are said to be illiterate, according to the ministry of Education.

“Literacy is key to empowerment of people and national development. Literacy can create a spark for empowerment of communities and individuals,” says Education Minister, Geoffrey Lungwangwa.

“But in as much as we would like to see many of our people acquire tools and skills that enhance literacy, and be able to translate the information they access to improve their daily lives, consultation over the (adult literacy) policy is very important.

“So we are still consulting, and we want to have as much participation from all players as possible before we come up with the national policy,” assures professor Lungwangwa.

Analysts and critics say the absence of the policy has been the main reason behind Zambia’s failure to offer education for the thousands of aged citizens who cannot read or write. While Zambia could have registered a number of positive achievements in terms of boosting enrolment at primary school level, there is little to show in the area of adult literacy.

According to Victor Koyi, chairperson of the Zambia national education coalition, an umbrella body of all civic organisations involved in providing non-formal education, the scenario presents a challenge that could affect the success of Zambia’s attainment of the second Millennium Development Goals on ensuring all children of school-going age are in schools by 2015.

“A parent who has not been to school seldom appreciates its importance; many illiterate parents especially in rural areas, do not support or encourage their children that much about school,” Mr Koyi said.

And this is something of a fact that even Ms Moyo attests to: “It is so easy for me now to appreciate the needs of my children in school. We sit down as a family to discuss our syllabus and various problems we could be facing. Education is power, I am able to understand many things,” she says.

The absence of an adult literacy policy has led to lack of proper direction, even for the few civic organisations and community volunteer organisations that attempt to raise the education levels of the “little” educated.

A new study, The Extent of Adult Literacy In Zambia, commissioned by the People’s Action Forum (PAF), a civic organisation promoting non-formal education in outlying areas, found that most facilitators were inadequately trained and poorly (or not) remunerated. Furthermore, there were no standardised educational materials for both facilitators and learners, in addition to lacking appropriate infrastructure.

The study also established that although adult literacy is generally considered important, government, donors, community service organisations and the private sector had not committed much funding to it.

“Adult literacy programmes under government departments are poorly managed, (there is) lack of comprehensive policy framework, lack of appropriate curriculum and lack of standards in the sub-sector,” reads part of the findings of the study conducted by Margaret Machila and two other researchers.

To a large extent, the findings of the study go some way in explaining the reasons why hundreds of adults like Ms Moyo, are now opting to go into formal schools, despite their learning capabilities being totally different from those of the children they are being taught together with.

The local media has in the recent past captured a number of stories of parents attending schools with their own children in Luapula province, among other places. But analysts fear the situation could hinder others from learning, especially those who might not be keen on having to compete with their own children in class.

Illiteracy is said to fuel poverty in many parts of the country. In all areas where majority of the population are illiterate, there is often the resultant factor of higher unemployment and poverty levels.

 allAfrica.com: Zambia: Adult Education Lacking Policy Direction (Page 1 of 1)

Food costs soaring, so poor hurt

By BAN KI-MOON

The price of food is soaring. The threat of hunger and malnutrition is growing. Millions of the world’s most vulnerable people are at risk. An effective and urgent response is needed.

The first of the Millennium Development Goals, set by world leaders at the United Nations summit in 2000, aims to cut the number of hungry people in half by 2015. This already was a major challenge, not least in Africa where many nations have fallen behind. But we now face a perfect storm of new challenges.

The prices of basic staples - wheat, corn, rice - are at record highs, up 50% or more in the last six months. Global food stocks are at historic lows. The causes range from rising demand in major economies like India and China to climate and weather-related events such as hurricanes, floods and droughts that have devastated harvests in many parts of the world.

High oil prices have increased the cost of transporting food and purchasing fertilizer. Some experts say the rise of biofuels has reduced the amount of food available for humans.

The effects are widely seen. Food riots have erupted in countries from West Africa to South Asia. Communities living in countries where food has to be imported to feed hungry populations are rising up to protest the high cost of living. Many governments have issued export bans and price controls on food, distorting markets and presenting challenges to commerce.

In January, for example, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai appealed for $77 million to help provide food for more than 2.5 million people pushed over the edge by rising prices. The average Afghan household now spends about 45% of its income on food, compared with 11% in 2006.

This is the new face of hunger, increasingly affecting communities that had previously been protected. And, inevitably, it is the so-called “bottom billion” who are hit hardest: people living on one dollar or less a day.

When people are that poor, and inflation erodes their meager earnings, they generally do one of two things: They buy less food, or they buy cheaper, less nutritious food. The U.N.’s World Food Program is seeing families who previously could afford a diverse, nutritious diet dropping to one staple and cutting their meals from three to two or one a day.

Experts believe that high food prices are here to stay. Even so, we have the tools and technology. We know what to do. What is required is political will and resources, directed effectively and efficiently.

First, we must meet urgent humanitarian needs. This year, the WFP plans to feed 73 million people globally, including as many as 3 million people each day in Darfur. But to do so, the WFP requires an additional $500 million simply to cover the rise in food costs.

Second, we must strengthen U.N. programs to help developing countries deal with hunger. This must include support for safety net programs to provide social protection in the face of urgent need while working on longer term solutions. We also need to develop early warning systems to reduce the impact of disasters. School feeding - at a cost of less than 25 cents a day - can be a particularly powerful tool.

Third, we must deal with the increasing consequences of weather-related shocks to local agriculture, as well as the long-term consequences of climate change - for example, by building drought and flood defense systems that can help food-insecure communities to cope and adapt.

Last, we must boost agricultural production and market efficiency. Roughly a third of food shortages could be alleviated to a significant degree by improving local agricultural distribution networks and helping connect small farmers to markets. U.N. agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, meanwhile, are working with the African Union and others to promote a “green revolution” in Africa by introducing vital science and technologies that offer permanent solutions for hunger.

But that is for the future. In the here and now, we must help the world’s hungry hit by rising food prices. That means, for starters, recognizing the urgency of the crisis - and acting.

Ban Ki-Moon is Secretary-General of the United Nations.

JS Online: Food costs soaring, so poor hurt

progress report on the MDGs in Ethiopia

ISLAMABAD, March 22 (Xinhua) — Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said Saturday Pakistan is committed to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 through a variety of interventions.

The interventions include real per capita income growth, expansion of schooling particularly for girls, decreasing pupil-teacher ratio, improving nutritional status of children and providing basic facilities in remote areas, said Musharraf in a message on the occasion of World Water Day.

He said that the vision 2030 and Mid Term Development Framework being implemented by the Pakistani government consider sanitation as an important sector and aim to improve the water, sanitation and hygiene situation in the country in line with the MDGs through the implementation of the National Sanitation Policy.

The World Water Day is celebrated on March 22 every year which provides a unique opportunity to invite attention of the government, the international community, civil society and individuals to take action.

“This year, the theme ‘Sanitation matters’, is a call to reach out beyond the community and to capitalize on the energy and commitment of the people, and to achieve a common goal to bring global and local attention and to galvanize action, so that every person on the planet is made less vulnerable to water stress, water related disasters and poor water quality”, Musharraf said.

The United Nations General Assembly decided to designate 2009 as the International Year of Sanitation (IYS), with the overall objective of accelerating progress on sanitation to help save lives and foster economic and social development.

“The IYS is expected to build on decisions taken by the Commission on Sustainable Development and help keep the issue of sanitation at the forefront of the global agenda”, Musharraf said.

“Sanitation is one of the basic necessities, which not only contributes to human dignity and quality of life but is a prerequisite to fighting against diseases”, he added.

Every year over 1.5 million people particularly children under five worldwide die of diarrhea apart from typhoid, Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI), Avian Human Influenza (AHI) and Polio resulting from inadequate and unsafe water, poor sanitation and insufficient attention to hygiene behaviors.

It is estimated that about 91 million people of Pakistan lack access to improved sanitation, 48 percent of schools do not have access to toilet facility, around 50 percent of the garbage generated by major cities is disposed of, part of which at informal dumping sites.

 President: Pakistan commits to achieving MDGs by 2015_English_Xinhua

DEVELOPMENT: Climate Change Deepening World Water Crisis

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 19 (IPS) - When U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last January, his primary focus was not on the impending global economic recession but on the world’s growing water crisis.

“A shortage of water resources could spell increased conflicts in the future,” he told the annual gathering of business tycoons, academics and leaders from governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations.

“Population growth will make the problem worse. So will climate change. As the global economy grows, so will its thirst. Many more conflicts lie just over the horizon,” he warned.

Anders Berntell, executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute, says the lack of safe drinking water for over 1.0 billion people worldwide, and the lack of safe sanitation for over 2.5 billion, “is an acute and devastating humanitarian crisis.”

“But this is a crisis of management, not a water crisis per se, because it is caused by a chronic lack of funding and inadequate understanding of the need for sanitation and good hygiene at the local level,” Berntell told IPS.

He said: “This can and must be fixed through improved governance and management, and increased funding, and sustained efforts to achieve the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),” which include the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger and adequate water and sanitation.

A U.N. study released on the eve of World Water Day Mar. 22 says the lack of safe drinking water is not confined to the world’s poorer nations; it also threatens over 100 million Europeans.

The result: nearly 40 children in Europe, mostly in Eastern Europe, die every day due to a water-related disease: diarrhoea.

In Eastern Europe, about 16 percent of the population still does not have access to drinking water in their homes, while in rural areas, over half of all people suffer from the lack of safe water and adequate sanitation.

“The world water crisis is definitely very bad, particularly because it deals with mismanagement of water and how governments have failed to secure the involvement of local communities in the management of water,” says Sunita Narain, director of the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, and the 2005 winner of the prestigious annual Stockholm Water Prize.

“We, as societies, have failed to use small amounts of water for bringing large productivity gains,” she said.

However, today the world water crisis faces yet another challenge — one of climate change, Narain told IPS.

“And it is this challenge which the world is completely failing to do anything about, and which will jeopardise the water security of large numbers of people, who already live on the margins of survival,” she declared.

Responding to a question, Berntell admitted there is a “world water crisis” judging by the number of people without safe drinking water and basic sanitation.

And this, he said, “in a world which has the financial wealth and technical wherewithal to solve these twin scandals”.

“We must find better ways to manage water resources, in so far as water pollution is concerned, and to meet the food requirements of a human population which will expand by over 3.0 billion people in 2050.”

“We also must meet the water-climate challenge. Everything could become much more desperate and severe in the future if the proper steps are not taken,” he added.

So, it is important, Berntell argued, to make a distinction between the water resource crisis — which is primarily caused by an overexploitation of water resources for agricultural and industrial use, as well as pollution — and the water service and sanitation crisis.

In a statement released Wednesday, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said many rivers in developing countries and emerging economies are now polluted to the brink of their collapse.

“The Yangtze, China’s longest river, is cancerous with pollution due to untreated agriculture and industrial waste,” IUCN warned

Meanwhile, arguing that water shortages will drive future conflicts, the U.N. secretary-general says the slaughter in Darfur — described as “genocide” by the United States — was triggered by global climate change.

“It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought,” Ban said. When Darfur’s land was rich, black farmers welcomed Arab herders and shared their water.

With the drought, however, farmers fenced in their land to prevent overgrazing. “For the first time in memory, there was no longer enough food and water for all. Fighting broke out,” he said.

“Water is a classic common property resource. No one really owns the problem. Therefore, no one really owns the solution,” he declared.

Asked if the United Nations and the international community are doing enough to help resolve the problem or even draw attention to it, Narain told IPS: “Definitely there has been an attempt over the last few years to understand both the nature of the crisis as well as to draw attention to it.”

“However, I believe that the international community’s understanding of what needs to be done to resolve the water crisis has been both weak as well as misplaced.”

The reason, she pointed out, “is that the international community does not understand water and how it affects local communities and, therefore, the United Nations and the international community is looking for quick fix technological solutions to what is primarily a governance issue.”

Berntell took a different perspective. “Unquestionably,” he said, “water, and in particular sanitation, remain far too low on the international agenda.”

Access to clean water and sanitation underpin all human development efforts, and water issues are central to climate change adaptation and sustainable development. “But much more needs to be done to address the spectrum of challenges,” he told IPS.

The U.N. system, and the “UN-Water” collaborative effort in particular, works extremely hard and well and is consistently improving its efforts to better coordinate and make more effective its work, he said.

The U.N.’s declaration of 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation has catalysed increased action and attention to critical health and hygiene issues this year, Berntell added.

“Still, the U.N. must strengthen its efforts to coordinate its monitoring and reporting. They cannot afford to continue delivering too many reports on overlapping issues at the same time.”

A good starting point, he said, would be the “five ones” identified by Britain: one annual global monitoring report; one high-level global ministerial meeting on water; at country level, one national plan for water and sanitation; one coordinating body; and activities of U.N. agencies on water and sanitation to be coordinated by one lead body under the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) and its country plan.

 DEVELOPMENT: Climate Change Deepening World Water Crisis

Kazakhstan - Improving water supply and sanitation

Improving water supply and sanitation in poor countries is essential to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and reducing poverty. What lessons to help meet this challenge can be learnt from a recent survey of water and sanitation in Kazakhstan?

Research from the University of Nottingham in the UK and the United Nations Development Programme in Kazakhstan reports the findings of a water and sanitation survey carried out in Kazakhstan in 2005.

Target ten of Goal seven of the MDGs is to halve the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015, compared with the situation in 1990. Access to clean water and proper sanitation will also be central to meeting MDG targets on reducing poverty and infant mortality.

However, concerns have been raised over the way Target 10 is measured and monitored. The researchers use information from the Kazakhstan survey, which was designed to assess the current level of access to clean water and to provide a baseline for Target 10, to explore some of these concerns.

 Kazakhstan - Improving water supply and sanitation « Sanitation Updates

India lags behind in meeting UN development goals: Govt

NEW DELHI: India is lagging behind in meeting the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals for bringing down infant and maternal mortality rates but is on course to achieve all other targets, Government said on Monday.

Minister of Women and Child Development Renuka Chowdhary also informed the Rajya Sabha that the Government is planning to merge two schemes for adolescent girls to universalise the programme.

Replying to supplementary, she said the country was “well on track” to meet the Millennium Development Goals but was lagging behind on the target set on bringing down infant and maternal mortality rates.

According to a UNICEF report, the mortality rate of children under five years was 76 per thousand births in 2006 while the MDG sets a target of bringing in down to 38 per thousand births by 2015.

The average annual rate of reduction has to be 7.6 per cent till 2015 to meet the target.

She said the Government is planning to merge the Kishori Shakti Yojana and the Nutrition Programme for Adolescent girls to universalise the programme and recast the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) to make it more effective.

Chowdhary said the Centre wants the state governments to “come on board” and “partner” it in providing better wages to Anganwadi workers, who are usually roped in by the states for other works including conducting census.

“If there is extra work, there should be extra pay,” she said. She also noted that there was no provision to treat Anganwadi workers as government employees.

She said the Centre was expanding the ICDS programme and there will be around 18 lakh anganwadis in the country in near future and more will be opened in a phased manner. 

 India lags behind in meeting UN development goals: Govt-India-The Times of India

RIGHTS: U.N. Confident of New Agency for Women

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 7 (IPS) - As the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) concluded its two-week session in New York Friday, United Nations officials remain hopeful that the proposal for a new U.N. agency for women would become a reality.

“I believe the process is now back on track,” said Assistant Secretary-General Rachel Mayanja, the U.N. special adviser on gender issues and advancement of women.

Asked about the current status of the proposal, she told reporters it is now before the 192-member General Assembly.

“It is in the inter-governmental process. They started discussing it last year, and somehow they are not able to advance beyond formal meetings,” Mayanja said.

She also said that the current president of the General Assembly, H.E. Srgjan Kerim, has recently appointed facilitators, and they had one meeting last month.

The proposal for a new U.N. women’s agency was made in November 2006 by a 15-member “High-Level Panel of U.N. System-Wide Coherence”, comprising heads of government, former world political leaders, and senior government and U.N. officials.

The high-level panel called for the creation of a “new gender architecture”, which includes the consolidation of three existing U.N. entities — the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the U.N. Division for the Advancement of Women — under a single new U.N. agency to be headed by an under-secretary-general, the third highest ranking post in the world body.

But its implementation will require the blessings of the 192-member General Assembly, which has not given any indication of how it will respond. As a result, the proposal has virtually remained in limbo.

Asked by IPS whether there was resistance to the proposal in the General Assembly, Mayanja said: “I’m not aware of any resistance.”

“I think the member states are looking into it. They have questions, they have to understand how this new entity will function, what structure this will take, what the mandate is,” she said.

Additionally, member states want to know “how it would relate to other existing entities, and how this would affect gender mainstreaming because all entities of the U.N. system are involved in promoting gender equality.”

“So, there are issues that they have to resolve before we can see the entity,” she explained.

Jessica Neuwirth, president of the New York-based Equality Now, says the proposal for a U.N. agency for women “is languishing in political stalemate”.

She told IPS: “This does a great injustice to women. After all of the discussion that has gone into the idea over the past few years of consolidating the gender architecture of the U.N. it is high time to move forward with this idea, which would strengthen the capacity of the U.N. to act in a coordinated and strategic manner for the advancement of women.”

For too long, she said, the popular trend of gender mainstreaming in the U.N. has led to gender “disappearancing”.

“We need an agency that represents women and moves the agenda (including gender mainstreaming) forward effectively,” Neuwirth said. She said this agency should be established as quickly as possible and should be adequately funded to ensure that it is able to carry out its important mission.

Asked about a 1997 General Assembly resolution calling for 50:50 gender parity in senior U.N. jobs in the secretariat by the year 2000, Mayanja said: “We’re trying hard, we’re trying very hard. We have many challenges.”

She said the secretary-general is very much committed to reach gender parity, but he started from a big deficit. And therefore, it’s not going to happen overnight.

“He’s working towards it and he’s making it very clear to his senior colleagues that he wants to see gender parity achieved, and he has actually given out instructions to this effect,” Mayanja said.

Ban also convened a policy committee meeting in which he dedicated the whole discussion to the representation of women in the Secretariat.

“So, I have absolutely no doubt that the secretary-general is committed. Now, of course he’s not going to achieve this by himself alone, all of us have to contribute, all of us, not just us in the Secretariat, but also member states putting forward candidates that could be selected by the Secretary General.”

She also said that “qualified women are in demand and there’s competition…They are not just sitting there; they may not choose the U.N. We have to be attractive; it is not just matter of qualification. But it is also about what we’re offering.”

Asked about the six-month delay in the appointment of a new executive director of the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the primary U.N. body dealing with women’s issues, Mayanja said: “That I cannot answer because I don’t know.”

She said the delay may be due to the long process, and the many candidates who have to be interviewed and reviewed. “In other words, the recruitment process is not a short process. And I’m not a part of the process, so I can’t really tell you how many applicants there were.”
 

RIGHTS: U.N. Confident of New Agency for Women

WOMEN'S DAY-KENYA: Equal Pay in Theory, Not Always in Fact

NAIROBI, Mar 7 (IPS) - On Mar. 8, a century ago, thousands took to the streets of New York in demonstrations aimed at improving life for women. Burning issues of the day included the need for better working conditions — higher pay, a shorter work day — and winning the right to vote.
By Kwamboka Oyaro

These protests, by women, led to Mar. 8 being named International Women’s Day — and they have also inspired the theme for this year’s commemorations: ‘Shaping Progress’. A hundred years on, how do the claims of the New York marchers resonate with women of today, especially on the critical matter of pay?

In Kenya, both government and the established private sector endorse the principle of equal pay for equal work. Wages are determined by level of entry into an organisation or by years of service, says Titus Ruhiu, chief executive of the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, although he notes that matters are more problematic in certain sectors — including agriculture.

“It is just because they think men have more output than women. But professional jobs pay equally for work done, to both men and women, in accordance with their qualifications.”

Anna Amadi, deputy executive director at the Kenyan chapter of the Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA Kenya), is less sanguine.

“Companies or jobs where one negotiates one’s pay have rampant pay disparities. A woman working at a reputable law firm in Nairobi realised after months that she was earning half what a male colleague was earning, although they were employed on the same day and had the same job title,” she told IPS.

When the woman sought an explanation she was told that as a wife, she did not have as much financial pressure on her as would a man in her position: while men typically paid rent and took care of family bills, married women had husbands to meet these obligations. Disgusted, the woman lawyer quit her job.

“This is a law firm where people know their rights. I can imagine the situation is worse in non-legal organisations…Women suffer in silence,” said Amadi.

Matters appear to be better in government, at first glance; but traditional gender roles are also making themselves felt in the civil service — ensuring that pay gaps emerge over time, even if men and women are paid equally at the point of employment.

Isaac Were, co-ordinator of gender and employment at the University of Nairobi’s Department of Gender Studies, says men tend to get more money through allowances because of their ability to work overtime.

“A woman will be reluctant to work overtime. She is concerned about her security and time for family. A man is flexible and he can work late into the night and even Sundays. He gets paid for this, thus earning more than a woman at the same level,” he told IPS.

“Because of this flexibility you can actually depend on a man to go on a short course instantly, while the woman must plan. The man’s extra work earns him good rating during performance appraisal and this enhances his chances for promotion.”

Civil servants also talk of study opportunities and trips abroad (with handsome allowances) being awarded to men — again because women are, or are perceived to be, too bound up by family responsibilities to take advantage of the assignments.

These complaints are echoed by human rights lawyer Josephine Omwenga.

“In many organisations, women are shoveled aside — (for) reasons such as family commitments — as men are sponsored by the company to acquire new skills which put them at an advantage to grab promotion, while the woman’s lack of additional skills justifiably knocks her out.”

At worst, the mere prospect of a woman having family ties may work against her. “Some people are reluctant to employ women of child-bearing age, preferring a man to a woman even if the woman has better qualifications,” said Amadi.

An official at the Ministry of Labour who preferred to go unnamed told IPS authorities were aware that women could be earning less than they deserved in certain instances, but that government had yet to put these discrepancies in the spotlight: “Without watchdogs such as unions making noise, then we assume everything is OK, and we go on with other labour issues.”

So, where are the watchdogs?

Lucy Abega of the Foundation for Gender and Equality, a non-governmental organisation based in the capital — Nairobi — claims that unions tend to be “old boys’ networks” which fail to advance women’s rights. “Thus, women…benefit from the common bargaining agreement along with all members, but there is nothing that addresses their special needs,” she told IPS.

IPS could not obtain comment from the National Commission on Gender and Development about this issue at the time of publication, and it appears that organisations for the various professions and civil society have yet to undertake comprehensive initiatives focusing on how women fall behind on the pay scale because of domestic responsibilities and gender perceptions.

However, FIDA Kenya is planning to undertake such research in future and recommend appropriate action.

Matilda Musumba, a gender activist working with the United Nations in Nairobi, argues that women need to be far more assertive in pushing for equal pay.

“It is time women did something about it…and even adopt men’s strategies of networking to get what they want,” she told IPS.

“Men play golf and it is during such tournaments that major deals are signed. Women must not necessarily play golf, but they must learn the tricks of getting there and stop shying away from challenges and wallowing in self pity.”

 WOMEN’S DAY-KENYA: Equal Pay in Theory, Not Always in Fact