| The nineties
characterise an era where the mantra is globalisation, hailed as the engine of economic
growth for SADC countries. Trade
policies, have had a profound impact on social, economic and political life in the SADC
region. Economic policies of trade liberalisation demand a greater flexibility in shifting
resources from one sector to another. They are premised on a commensurate mobility of
individuals. There is however, a strategic silence on the impact of trade liberalisation
on gender. Social impact studies, regarding such policies, are not high on the list of
many SADC member states’ planning agenda.
New development directions in the SADC region are focused on
market efficiency. How elements of free trade, interact and interface with conditions
ranging from social cohesion to social disintegration, secure livelihoods to economic
insecurity, relative equity to extreme inequality have yet to be fully researched in the
SADC region.
Some of its key objectives are:
- futher liberalisation, intra-regional trade and beneficial trade arrangements to provide
and complement other protocols;
- enhancing and creating sufficient productive capacity within SADC which should enable us
to benefit from our inherent advantages in the region;
- create a free trade area within SADC, in the next eight years;
- ensure that countries in the region give “most favoured nation” status to each
to other.
Like most Trade Protocols, SADC is gender blind. There is a conceptual bias, which
stems from a policy’s concepts and the assumptions behind them, for example the way
policy makers conceptualise women and men. It discusses trade in economic and political
terms, and does not differentiate the social and economic impact of changing trade
patterns on women and men. The gendered impact of trade is not an emerging paradigm on the
agenda of this protocol.
The protocol does not indicate how states and markets in the region, can be
transformed to strengthen the entitlements of poor women and treat women as people in
their own right, not merely as dependents, targets and instruments.
How can this empowerment of women be made central to the framing
of trade policies? The conceptual framework of the protocol does not have social
development of people as a key objective. This means that the conceptual framework, must
address how economic growth will be generated, the pattern and rate of growth, and who
benefits from this. |
There are also structural
biases. These relate to the way the protocol’s implementation process is structured.
The lack of an appropriate operational framework, excludes the consideration of gender as
a variable in planning as well as in the implementation process. It does not take into
consideration the structural dislocation that trade liberalisation can contribute to
social structures, if not well planned. For instance, how
could reducing and eliminating tariffs and quotas or eliminating restrictions on certain
sectors have different impact on women and men? How should member states prepare for this? |
The protocol
does not discuss how it will protect these industries, nor how member states will provide
new opportunities for people displaced by liberalisation in those sectors. Most policy makers, regard these sectors as “soft sectors”, so no
social impact research is conducted, because ideologically, many policy makers hold the
view that women can always run home to partners or families, where they can continue to be
dependents, rather than productive members of society.
This contradicts the fact that over 60 percent of SADC households
are headed by women, who are the main bread winners. Women are seen as contributing more
to reproductive work, not productive work in the economy.
The Trade Protocol has as one of it’s key objectives, as the
creation of a Free Trade Area (FTA). If women are to participate in moving goods, people
and services at a competitive level, they need capital.
Currently the issue of credit and women in many member states is a
sore point. Despite the fact that women have a higher loan repayment rate than men, they
still do not have access to credit.
One of the issues that the protocol must address, is credit for
women, if they are to be full participants of FTAs in the region.
A social dimension must be integrated into all trade relations,
and must be geared towards poverty eradication and development of human resource capacity,
with particular emphasis on the operationalisation of gender analysis of all trade and
investment policies.
The participation of civil society in the decision-making,
formulation, implementiaon and evaluation process is vita.
The author is a development/trade economist, and CEO of Motheho Integrity Consultants,
a non-profit organisation dealing with gender and trade economics in southern Africa.
Mixed reactions to SA-EU trade
Laying an institutional foundation for the
trade protocol
Landmines hinder development in southern
Africa |
| The SADC Trade Protocol in
Part Two Article 3, addresses the Elimination of Barriers to Intra-SADC Trade. One issue
is Non-tariff barriers (NTBs). At two recent seminars on women and trade in the SADC
region, the question of immigration and custom laws, have been a key bone of contention
for women who have the desire for cross-border trade. Borders
suggest an enclosure created by certain well-defined interests: in this case national
boundaries, regional blocs, financial interest, political or military power. Thus open
borders suggest an abscence of any form of control or constraint. The market breaks down
barriers, opens borders.
The question of gender in trade policy is not simply one of
economic or social problems. It also involves social relations of gender and the problems
of deconstructing the ideology of gender relations, which include a redistribution of
power. In formulating policies and intervention strategies women are still viewed as means
to achieve some economic or social goals rather than individuals who in their own capacity
are agents of change. For instance, in sectors dominated by women, such as agriculture,
textile, and service industries, liberalisation has already resulted in the loss of
employment for women in the region. |