Forum discusses impact of corruption on African women

In Nouakchott, Mauritania

Concerned about the apparent inability by Africa’s government to contain the corruption monster, tens of non-governmental organisations converged at Mauritania’s capital Nouakchott to discuss the impact of graft especially on the continent’s women, children and youth, ahead of a Heads of States and governments African Union Summit next week.

Meeting under the auspices of Gender is My Campaign (Gimac), the forum, which included representatives of the African Union called on the continent’s governments to do more in the fight against corruption, noting that the vice had impacted especially on women, children and the youth.

ANTI-GRAFT

They suggested, for instance, that governments strengthen accountability mechanisms for holding multinational companies accountable to pay taxes as well as uphold human and women’s rights which a number, especially in extractive industries, have been accused of violating. 

The AU has declared 2018 as the anti-corruption year.

The African Women’s Development and Communication Network, (Femnet), which launched a policy report at the meeting called on AU leadership to take urgent action to fight graft with executive director Memory Kachambwa arguing the push for accountability in Africa would be “unstoppable.’’

“The reality that our African leaders must confront is the fact that because of corruption, African’s women and girls are seriously the collateral damage.

They lose out on all the important pointers of development because all the resources are lost on illegitimate dealings,’’ Ms Kachambwa, in the report titled Fight Corruption, Finance Gender and Equality, which outlines, gaps of corruption and inequality. 

The report also asks AU to address international financial flows arguing that if 5 percent of the 50 billion dollars lost to the vice was invested in gender equality programs, huge progress would be made.

African governments were called upon to adopt a combination of stringent measures to tighten the noose on corruption and become more accountable to the people.

 “Africa’s gender inequality index is shockingly more devastating on women and girls and a fact which Femnet insists must be addressed within AU’s theme on eradicating corruption.

“The government’s must be extremely serious in ratifying, domesticating and implementing regional instruments on corruption and gender equality and charters like the Maputo protocol that will ensure gender equality and women’s empowerment,’’ said Ms Kachambwa.

At the 32nd session of Gimac comes at a time Kenya, is grappling with high level corruption perpetrated by public officials and which has seen billions of tax payers money go into individuals pockets.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has sworn that any public officer implicated in corruption would serve term in jail, as he seeks to leave a legacy at the end of his second term in 2022. His resolve has seen some senior government officials hurled into courts to answer corruption allegations.

At the GIMAC meeting, delegates singled out sectors that appear to have been hit the hardest by corruption and the situations were strikingly similar in Africa. They include the impact graft has had on gender such as corrupt practices permeate the health sector to impact negatively on women’s health care, sexual reproductive health rights, education, land allocation and alienation of women’s land rights as well as how it has come in the way of fighting the menace that is sexual and gender violence, elimination of child marriages and migration and the youth.

Delegates called upon African Union and in particular Heads of States at the summit, to also take place in Nouakchott, to address the issue of illicit financial flows whose linkages to corruption continues to weaken state institutions. They called for implementation of recommendations made by a panel led by former South African President Thabo Mbeki on the same.

Other suggestions to the AU summit include to ensure countries adopt policies and measures which prioritise gender responsive accountability that address redistribution and reduction of unpaid care work while working towards elimination of corruption in provision of public services locally and nationally.

The summit was asked to establish a panel to inquire on causes and mitigation of migration and vulnerability of youth and women to transnational human trafficking criminal syndicates. The team, the meeting suggested, should present it’s finding to the African Union summit next January.

It should also engage the judiciary in establishing ways to fight corruption and fast track sexual and cases of gender violence.

The delegates, who comprise representatives of leading non governmental organisations in the continental welcomed the decision of the African Union to declare 2018 as the “year of anti-corruption that aspires to build an Africa whose development is people driven, relying on the potential offered by African people, especially women, youth and children.’’

Supported by AU, GIMAC's  two day consultative meeting’s objective was to come up with action plans in view of what they see as positive reforms at the AU such as establishing a new board on corruption and a gender directorate, buoyed by the e declaration to “eliminate’’ corruption within it’s membership.

The African Union’s summit which is slated to start Monday to July  2, meets under the anti-corruption theme, 'Winning the fight against corruption: a sustainable path to Africa’s transformation'.