6.0 Gender in the PRSP and its relationship to the National Budget in Zambia.

PositionGender Dimension of PRSP Processes and the Relationship to the National Budgets: The Experiences of Egypt, Mali, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia - Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper - Report

6.1 A gender analysis of indicators for the key PRSP sectors.

According to the Living Conditions Monitoring Survey of 1998, 73% of the population of Zambia lived below the poverty line. Further, poverty was higher in rural areas with 83% of the population living in poverty, compared with the 56% found in urban areas. For example, Northern Province, where about 85% of the people reside in rural areas, is among the poorest provinces in Zambia. Home to about 1.4 million people, an estimated 81% of the population in Northern Province are poor and 66% extremely poor (CSO, 1998).

Poverty is multi-dimensional and is due to multiple and complex factors. The decline of the Zambian economy after the collapse of the mining sector contributed greatly to rising poverty levels. Poverty, together with unfavourable agriculture practices, lack of market access, natural disasters such as drought and floods, animal diseases and the impact of HIV and AIDS, is one of the key factors behind Zambia's poor food security situation.

In Zambia, gender is considered as one of the main determinants of poverty. According to the 1998 Living Conditions Monitoring Survey, more female-headed households faced extreme poverty than male-headed households. Further, more female-headed house-holds faced food shortages as well as longer periods of food insecurity than male-headed households. Women are more vulnerable to poverty in part because of their lower levels of education, their smaller share in the formal sector, and their higher risk of contracting HIV/AIDS than men (28). The feminization of poverty is reflected in women's limited access to and control over productive resources, social services, remunerative employment opportunities and minimal participation in political and managerial decision-making processes.

In July 2002, the Zambian Government officially launched its first Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) for the period 2002-2004. The PRSP had the overriding objective of attaining sustained and high economic growth, improving access and quality in the provision of social and public services (especially education, health and water and sanitation), and mainstreaming the cross cutting issues of HIV/AIDS, gender and the environment. The strategy correctly recognised that little could be achieved to reduce poverty unless measures were taken to revive Zambia's economy. Diversifying the economy was considered key to reviving the economy with agriculture and tourism, particularly given priority. Attaining macroeconomic stability, improving supportive infrastructure and good governance were also given priority in attaining high growth envisaged in the PRSP.

6.1.1 Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing

This sector employs 69% of Zambians, with 76% of the female population as compared to 63% for the males (Annex Table Z1). Whilst women constitute the majority of farmers in Zambia, their contribution to the agriculture sector and to the entire economic is not well documented, neither is it appreciated. Women in most cases only have user rights on land and this has implications on the type of crops that they can grow as well as the areas covered. In most cases, they are forced to provide labour for their husband's farms where cash crops are grown and at the same time they are expected to tend their own fields in order to ensure food security for their households. This place a great burden on their time and in most cases does not allow them to engage in cash crop production and marketing. Marketing of cash crops are often done by men despite the fact that women contribute significantly to the production process. Decisions around the utility of the funds that are realised from the sales finally rest in the hands of the men although in some cases women are consulted.

Whilst the poverty reduction programmes included investments in crop and fertiliser support, irrigation, disease control and rural electrification, evidence suggests that women were not always direct beneficiaries. Access to agriculture credit through inputs in some cases requires collateral such as land or livestock, which women do not often own. Where there are no conditionalities, lack of support from the spouse may hinder accessing such facilities. Cases have been known where programmes use household goods as collateral for agriculture inputs. In the event of default, kitchen utensils which are often owned by women are confiscated and women loose the very assets that they own due to default on the part of their spouses. In agricultural communities, the amount of disposable income for women is often negligible resulting in over dependency on men which has its own social and psychological problems. It results in high levels of gender based violence and women remain in abusive marriages because of not having other livelihood options or opportunities.

Agricultural marketing policy and interventions have not supported women farmers in terms of marketing their crops, and thus women's crops are to small local markets characterized by low returns, although the crops have potential to provide a source of cash income for women and their families. Prevailing socio-cultural norms with regard to 'crops and gender' have the effect of constraining women from selling their surplus crops due to the fact that their crops are meant for food. This undermines women's economic rights and, therefore, human rights to work and earn cash income in the market/national economy.

Women's time allocation to household based care-giving activities (childcare, wood and water provisioning, nursing sick family members, etc), though critical to operations and outputs in the market economy, has not been documented and, therefore, not reflected in national statistics that feed into policy, planning, and budgeting processes.

However, although linkages exist between the household/care economy and the market economy through the labor time allocation of men and women, and particularly women, these important linkages are not officially recognized and supported. The following table illustrates the access to and control over agriculture resources.

Given that about 70% of the population relies on agriculture (including crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry) for a livelihood, a situational analysis of Zambia must highlight this sector--which is also recognized by the GRZ as the engine of growth sector for the medium and long term. As the agricultural sector contributes just under 20% to GNP, it can be seen that most of the production in this sector is basically at small scale and for home consumption.

As a consequence, the country is still a net importer of food, and poverty is prevalent in many rural areas. The main reasons for this can be summarized as follows: limited allocation of resources to the agricultural sector; lack of adequate infrastructure in the outlying areas making the transport of inputs and outputs too costly; limited choices of production technologies available to smallholders; limited access to irrigation; non availability of financial resources for small-holder agricultural development and market outlets of their produce (as they do not have collateral or the bargaining power that derives from secured market outlets for their produce); and inadequate extension services. In fact, the availability and accessibility to high-value means of production are non-existent for the smallholders of the more marginal systems of production and areas.

Access to knowledge and technology generation, through the public research and extension network have become virtually unavailable to the majority of farmers, as well as training facilities aimed at the small-scale farmers. Lack of resources to maintain and expand structures, staffing and facilities are endemic in all provinces.

All of the problems listed above are, of course, shared by both male and female smallholder farmers. However, these problems are magnified for women when analysed from a gender perspective. In Zambia, women are the main producers, providers and traditional managers of food production for household subsistence, while men predominate in the production of cash crops. Women also grow a wider variety of crops (maize, sorghum, millet, beans, groundnuts and cowpeas) that, if a surplus is attained, are mostly sold on local markets, although women's lack of access to market support services (and, indeed, to larger, more profitable markets) limits their cash earnings through such sales.

Due to the differences in types of crops planted by gender, crop management becomes key to the distribution of income within rural households, as research has shown that the person who manages a particular crop/produce has a larger voice in how the resulting income is spent. For example, studies have shown that women either independently or jointly manage 60% of the area under local maize production (used for household consumption), but they were involved in just 25% of the management of hybrid maize (used for sales). Other studies have shown that households headed by females were less prone to adopting farming cash/export oriented crops than households headed by males. The decision-making process also varies in issues concerning storage, use of markets and marketing strategies, and use of irrigation technologies, depending on the crops planted.

Despite these negative characteristics, a conducive policy environment has been put in place that justifies a certain degree of optimism and consideration for investment in the sector. The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MACO) developed the National Agricultural and Cooperatives Policy (NACP) "to promote the development of an efficient, competitive and sustainable agricultural sector, which ensures food security and increased income". This vision is in line with the Transitional National Development Plan (TNDP, 2002-2005), the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper for 2002-2004 (PRSP), and in the more recent Fifth...

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