New York, 09 March-(ANA)-The global economic, food and climate change crises have hit African women the hardest, a delegation of African and United Nations female officials attending a conference on gender equality have said.
“When we look at the GDPs of all African countries, they are between five and seven per cent [in the recent past] … but this present crisis is going to erode all those gains that have been made,” Isatou Njie Saidy, Vice-President of Gambia, told journalists at UN Headquarters in New York.
She pointed to the reduction in remittances to developing countries, the drop-off in the tourism sector in Africa and a fall in direct foreign investment into the continent as clear examples of how the global economic crisis affects women in Africa.
“As a result of inequalities women will feel the pinch more than men,” said Ms. Saidy.
Women, who make up the majority of small-scale farmers in Africa, are
disproportionately affected by the recent hikes in food prices, increased cost of fertilizer and other agricultural inputs, and limited access to fertile land and farming machinery.(ANA)
Amnesty/Report