Rural Women’s Empowerment, Herder-farmers Violence and other reports

Every week, RuralReporters.com collate reports on development issues in rural Africa and its environs.

This report includes some of our top picks from recent must-read research, interviews, blogs, and in-depth articles, carefully selected to help you keep up with global issues.

Here are some of the updates you may have missed from the previous week:

Rural Women’s Empowerment – the Road to Gender Equality & Sustainable Development

Rural women and girls face the brunt of the feminization of poverty and its inter-generational consequences, the impacts of climate change, desertification, extreme weather events and natural disasters. They are also the most vulnerable in conflict situations, as migrants and refugees and in humanitarian crisis. Disability rates are higher among rural women and girls , support systems weak or non existent and they are stigmatized to boot .

The irony is that although they are the primary growers of food crops and processors of food, they mostly get to eat last and the least the nutritious food they need to be healthy and strong.

Rural women’s participation and leadership in local government is progressing but needs to pushed further as much as in national government so that rural women’s interests and needs get reflected in governance and budgeting. They must participate equally with men in public, political and economic life at all levels.

Ivorian women banned from doing ‘men’s job’

In several African countries, women can do anything they want. In legal terms, they have the right to do any kind of job they want. But in Cote d’Ivoire, the situation is going to be different. The Ivorian government has updated its labour laws to stop women from doing certain jobs that “exceed their abilities”.

The announcement came as the world celebrated International Women’s Day on Thursday. Bruno Koné, a government spokesperson told the BBC that the list of banned jobs includes “work that exceeds the ability and physical capacity of women, or work that presents dangers which are likely to undermine their morality, for example, working underground or in the mines”.

Free State farm murder: DA MP calls for introduction of rural safety units

The Free State community of Vredefort has been left devastated after a farm murder claimed the life of 71-year-old Dirk Steenkamp.

Another tragic loss of life has struck the farming community, and it’s something Democratic Alliance MP Patricia Kopane is vowing to atone for.

“Free State rural communities – farmers as well as farm workers – are increasingly at risk as the SAPS have limited personnel and resources to prevent violent crime in secluded rural areas,” she said.

Curfew imposed in Taraba over herder-farmers violence

Rural communities in Taraba state, eastern Nigeria, were on Friday on indefinite lockdown as the authorities tried to contain mounting violence between cattle herders and farmers.

Police spokesman David Misal said a round-the-clock curfew has been imposed in affected areas “due to the escalation of violence between Fulani and Mambilla ethnic groups”.

Recognise, Value Rural Women’s Contributions, Says Minister

A statement released by HelpAge International states that it is high time women stand together to fight any forms of violence. “Violence against older women is hidden, underestimated or ignored, dismissed as a private matter between relatives. It is no surprise, therefore, that it is widely under-reported and regarded as an accepted norm,” reads part of the statement.

Joseph Mbasha, Programme Manager for Rights at HelpAge in the country, said that there is an urgent need for the government to speed up the implementation of the national strategy to combat older people’s killings, as well as the enactment of older people’s law, which will be key in addressing the social ills that older people, particularly older women, are subjected to, in our communities.

Farms and rural communities key to Namibian tourism

Sprawling along the Atlantic coast of southwestern Africa, Namibia has one of the lowest population densities in the world, with just over two million people and only a handful of cities.

In some areas, it wasn’t unusual for us to drive over an hour without meeting another car. Urban areas and popular national parks are well set up for accommodation and other tourist services, but in between lie enormous tracts of land where the need has been filled by farms or small rural communities.

While Namibia abounds in great national parks and wildlife reserves, what we remember just as fondly is wandering through the wide-open spaces of its sparsely populated rural areas.