Sir, – A new report published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) claims that gender inequality in sub-Saharan Africa is costing the region on average almost $100 billion a year.
It is a shocking figure, and all the more so because there are a range of low-cost, low-tech actions which would greatly diminish its impact.
The United Nations annual conference on African Development heard last weekend that both legislation and social conventions were reinforcing the gender gap, obstructing economic growth in the poorest region on earth.
The report claimed that up to 540 million African women under the age of 60 had died prematurely in the last 20 years, and that African women in paid jobs were earning on average 70 per cent less than their male counterparts.
Given the importance of smallholder agriculture in Africa, supports for women farmers offer the greatest potential to change this dynamic.
African women do up to 70 per cent of the work on small farms, but receive a small fraction of the available benefits. They are denied access to land, to training, to seed, to information and to markets for their produce.
Activities that target women-headed households in rural development projects, that provide training to women, improve access to credit, and seek to organise women into producer groups co-operatives all help to change this.
If we want to level the field we can start by tackling the obstacles faced by Africa’s women farmers. – Yours, etc,
RAY JORDAN,
Chief Executive,
Gorta-Self Help Africa,
Parkgate Street,
Dublin 8.