Generating Inclusive and Sustainable Growth: Challenging Neoliberal Approaches to Gender Mainstreaming in Regional Economic Integration in Africa

Abstract

The introduction of The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) is the most recent attempt to attain inclusive and sustainable growth through economic integration. The policies of Regional Economic Communities (RECs) prioritise reductions in tariffs; increased ease in the mobility of goods, services, and people among member states; access to sub-regional, regional, and global markets; and changing the position of the continent in global value chains. The very role of the RECs in mitigating the uneven effects of globalisation has been questioned. Prioritising gender equality has been championed as a mechanism to ensure that women are incorporated into these processes in ways that benefit rather than exploit them. Based on experiences, regional integration is unlikely to attain these aims if it is based on the same neoliberal logics responsible for the existing global inequities and domestic, sub-regional, and regional inequalities. This study uses African feminist theories to examine the gender mainstreaming provisions of the AfCFTA, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and Southern African Development Community (SADC) to assess their perpetuation of neoliberal frameworks. The agreements are further evaluated through contemporary Pan-African approaches for attaining regional integration. The qualitative content analysis of the gender equality provisions of all three agreements reveals four core features of persistent neoliberal and neo-colonial frameworks: a) success measured as increasing the presence of women (descriptive inclusion only) in economic sectors, b) women not centred as decision-makers setting policy priorities, c) absence of a formal monitoring role for women to continuously assess the effectiveness of the agreements, and d) constraints on the negotiating power of workers through supranational economic institutions.