Contributions of Women to the Process of Development and Unity of Africa

“African Renaissance” has birthed a challenge in every woman in this continent. In 1999, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa issued a challenge to all people of Africa — a challenge to promote healing and restoration of our people and our land (a challenge he termed the “African Renaissance”). For centuries, Africa has been left out of the process of substantial development and poverty alleviation (essentially being pitted as the “black sheep” of the world). Despite the scandalous amount of the natural resources of Africa, to date, the majority of Africans still do not benefit from the riches of their very own lands. The major problems that Africa is still facing today are: underdevelopment because of the breakdown of its oral wisdom traditions; poverty in resource-rich environments; ethnic divisions due to artificial borders; discrimination from other parts of the world; theft of its bio-diversity by the northern hemisphere; pressure from Western institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, to conform to non-contextualised systems and processes; snatching of its intellectual capital, by the West in particular; continued colonisation in the form of resource exploitation; and, most importantly the oppression of its women.