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Thulani Ndlovu
SOME 3,000 kilometres away, a mother “peruses” through rotting vegetables in a dump site near a spread of dilapidated shacks on the outskirts of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania’s booming capital and industrial area.

A boy who looks five years old stands close to her. But this boy is in actual fact eight years old. Malnutrition has stunted his growth.

On the home front, a woman sits on the ground in front of a dilapidated round hut in Spring Grange Farm, Nyamandlovu, in Matabeleland North province.

She clings to a child whose bloated belly makes holding him awkward. She casts her eyes to the heavens, in expectation of a sign of rain but the skies are a clear solid blue – no rain in sight.

“We barely have enough to get by. We’ve less and less to eat every day. Maize harvested last season, which we grind into mealie-meal, is fast running out and we’re surviving on ulude (dried spider-wisp, one of the more popular wild vegetables in local tradition),” said Zikho Moyo from Nyamandlovu.

“We pray for good rains so that we’ve sufficient harvests. Food is now expensive, money is hard to come by and our only hope is in farming but we can’t farm without good rains.”

Moyo is an example of the harsh reality that women are burdened by child nurturing, climate change, food shortage and patriarchy existing across sub-Saharan Africa. “My husband left for a popular drinking spot along Victoria Falls Road in the morning. He doesn’t help around the house neither does he care whether or not we’ve eaten. He comes home late at night and leaves early in the morning to drink opaque beer. I’m now used to this life but I’m worried about my children’s welfare,” she said.

The unforgiving hot sun moves westward, forcing the shade of the hut to retreat.

Moyo, with a baby clinging to her emaciated figure sheepishly moves eastward under a tree which tells a story about the dry spell affecting this part of the country.

Still locked in a seemingly permanent embrace with her child, Moyo struggles to lay a cloth on the ground.

Toiling the soil in preparation for the planting season and the lactating baby have worn her out.

“We’ve been growing maize, sorghum, water melons, pumpkins and sweet reeds but we’ve not had successful harvest of late. I think the only explanation to this would be climate change, the new term we’ve been hearing of from discussions that people have been having. To think that humans are said to be responsible for climate change breaks my heart,” said Moyo.

“Whoever is causing this imbalance should visit us and see how tough life is and maybe they’ll be motivated to stop. Our children’s hopes are fast fading because our lives are tied to nature.”

The world is in the midst of socio-economic crises which affect everyone, rich or poor. But the impact of these crises are felt most acutely by those who hold the minority of the world’s wealth, consume the least natural resources and are furthest from power.

Again, Moyo is an example of scores of women burdened by increasing food shortages. Their situations are further worsened by inequality and poverty.

The feminisation of poverty has increased in rural areas as men migrate to urban areas and across borders, leaving women as the sole caretakers of large families.

In 2000, leaders across the world agreed on eight goals, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/Aids and providing universal primary education among others, all to be achieved by 2015, a matter of days from now.

Busani Sibindi, the executive director of ZimBeyond 2015, a global civic society campaign pushing for a strong and legitimate successor framework to the MDGs, said Africa as a whole would not meet the 2015 target. “It’s believed that most African countries will meet the MDGs 25 years after the 2015 target. There’re many reasons for this failure to meet the 2015 target date,” said Sibindi.

“Our populations have been growing at an accelerated rate. We’ve also witnessed a decline in aid. Our continent is still being ravaged by conflict. The full impact of Ebola is still yet to be quantified and our economies, though relatively and generally doing well, have not grown at rates high enough to enable us to meet the MDGs,” he said.

“It’s reported that in 2013, net bilateral aid to our continent fell by 5,6 percent. Poverty and hunger are still on the rise on the continent and projections by the World Bank show that sub-Saharan Africa is not on course to cut the rate of extreme poverty.”

Sibindi said there is generally no sign of a decline in unemployment rates or of a fall in the rate of vulnerable employment.

The reduction of maternal mortality rates which require a 5,5 percent annual reduction is not on track in most countries. This inadequate progress is against a background of weak health systems unable to deliver health services required to reach the MDGs.

With the MDGs life span ending in 2015, what hope do Africa’s poor have post 2015?

“Noting that the promise to end extreme poverty has been made before, it can actually be done. MDGs didn’t focus enough on reaching the very poorest and it excluded ordinary people,” said Sibindi.

“The new process proposed to be named Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should be inclusive, spearheaded by people most affected by poverty, climate change and inequality. Climate change and anti-poverty are inextricably linked. The new elephant in the room is climate change. Real changes can’t be made to the lives of the people without a target to reduce greenhouse gases,” he said.

Rural Women’s Movement in Zimbabwe chairperson Linda Sibanda said women represent 70 percent of small scale farmers in the country.

“Women play a leading role in food security despite the fact that they hold the least percentage in terms of land share ownership. While the lives of urban women have improved to some extent, rural women still face yester year challenges,” said Sibanda.

“For example, when a boy reaches a certain age, married or not, the chief or headman of the area allocates him a plot of land. We’ve reports from across the country of women being denied the same rights in relation to land ownership.”

Sibanda said the few women who own land are largely widows who would have inherited it from their husbands. “That should change and government must urge chiefs and headmen to allocate land to women to improve food security, reverse the feminisation of poverty and to achieve any developmental goals,” she said.

On January 31, Heads of State and Government of the African Union assembled in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during the 22nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the Union and entered into an agreement called the Common African Position (CAP).

They recognised efforts made by various organisations in facilitating the achievement of developmental goals and emphasised that the post 2015 development agenda should provide a unique opportunity for Africa to reach consensus on common challenges, priorities and aspirations, and to actively participate in the global debate on how to provide a fresh impetus to the MDGs.

It also examined and devised strategies to address key emerging development issues on the continent in the coming years.

In September 2015, the world will enter into a new agreement for a global development agenda.

Preparation for the new development framework demands that both governments and their citizens are in consensus and are willing to work together for the betterment of humanity.

Sibanda said preparation towards that kind of unity of purpose requires foundational consensus into what takes precedence.

“The agreed post 2015 SDGs should tackle the structural causes of poverty and inequality by fostering peace and security, democratic governance, the rule of law, education, resource redistribution, gender equity, sexual and reproductive rights and human rights for all,” she said.