25 / 148
11
Gender
Women and men play gender-specific role in all
socio-economic activities including, agriculture,
mining, fishing, hunting and gathering, forestry,
tourism, recreation, crafts, transport, water
resources development and environmental
management. Men are generally responsible
for attending political and social meetings
as well as being responsible for hunting,
fishing and animal husbandry. They also make
decisions about what crops to grow, what land
preparation procedures to use, when to harvest
and howmuch produce to sell.
In Zambia, 90 per cent of agricultural land falls
under traditional authority, which is based
on patriarchal principles of allocation. This is
despite the existence of a clause in the 2002
Land Policy of Zambia, which aimed to allocate
30 per cent of land to women. There is no
strategy to change customary law so that
women can have both use and ownership rights
to land. In 2002, the government of Zimbabwe
also committed to allocating 20 per cent
of land to women through resettlement, but
implementation of this provision is weak
(SARDCWIDSAA 2008).
Women are active and knowledgeable managers
and caretakers of the environment. In many
rural areas, women carry out natural resources
conservation work, such as soil conservation
and planting.
In the urban areas, women take primary
responsibility for the maintenance of clean
living conditions for their families. While women
constitute the majority of the agricultural
workers in the region, and are mainly responsible
for food production, their land rights are limited
in all countries in the basin.
Technology is used mainly for crops grown by
men, and for the large part, men are the ones
who receive Master Farmer training. They are
also usually responsible for overseeing the family
water and sanitation systems. Due to factors
such as urbanization, gender roles have begun to
change with women taking over decision-making
positions that were previously dominated by men.
In order for the basin and the rest of southern
Africa to achieve its poverty reduction and
eradication objectives, its policies and strategies
should address the gender gaps that exist across
southern African society (SADC and SARDC 2008).
Women are mostly
responsible for cooking, tilling
gardens, fetching firewood
and water, and keeping
small livestock such as goats.
Women alsohave obligations,
which fall within their
domestic domain such as food
preparation and childcare.
Firewood is the most common energy source in the Zambezi basin’s rural areas.
© P. Johnson, SARDC
© Mukundi
Mutasa
© Leonissah Munjoma
© SARDC