In Africa, poverty has a female face, affecting almost all aspects of women’s life and their basic human rights.

Responses from member States show that while recognising poverty as a feminised development challenge, governments have rarely adopted a feminised approach in responding to this challenge. The main strategies being adopted by countries to address poverty among women include micro credit and social protection programmes.

However while micro-credit is useful for addressing immediate household needs, it does not lead to transformative women’s economic empowerment. Furthermore, small-scale women’s businesses remain focused on traditional jobs such as embroidery, sewing and the sale of food items. Women’s micro-credit schemes are funded largely by Civil Society Organisations.

Few countries have reallocated public spending in favour of programmes and projects aimed at supporting women, and social protection programmes are usually not well targeted to meet the needs of women.

The global economic crisis is having negative impact on African women and is likely to increase the number of women living in poverty. Many women are being forced to manage shrinking household incomes due to loss of employment and remittances. This is likely to worsen the poverty level among women with major repercussions on children’s food security, education and health, and maternal mortality .

National gender-aware policies and strategies have not resulted convincingly in curbing the feminization of poverty in Africa. Besides, data on the extent and depth of poverty in the region do not enable much insight into the gendered nature of the causes and implications of poverty. They are rarely disaggregated by sex, and therefore do not reflect gender-based inequities within households.

Governments should increase public sector funding to economically empower women; and put in place wealth redistribution mechanisms that reach out to the poor, especially women, so that they benefit from the economic growth.