Open access Peer reviewed

Articles · Vol. 41 No. 3 (2016): Africa Development

Engineering our Own Futures: Lessons on Holistic Development from Muslim Women’s Civil Society Groups in Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania

  • Adryan Wallace
    Adryan Wallace
    The Africana Studies Program, University of Hartford, West Hartford, USA. Email: adwallace@hartford.edu
    Their articles →
Vol. 41 · 2016 No. 3 Africa Development AD

Abstract

Muslim women’s organizations in East and West Africa have cultivated successful strategies to mitigate the varied domestic economic and political outcomes produced by globalization. Although China and the other BRICS countries are providing multi-polar development models, their results may not differ significantly from their western counterparts if groups that are often left out of the decision-making processes are not included. There is an urgent need for social scientists to make the experiences of African women as designers of development the central point of theorizing in order to inform how we conceptualize economic and political participation and measure inequality. This paper will utilize case studies from local women’s non-governmental and community-based organizations in Kano, Nigeria, Tamale, Ghana and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to help develop mechanisms for sustainable economic growth and substantive representation which, I argue, can help generate state institutions that are more responsive to the needs of their citizens. Mainstreaming gender as an analytical frame is essential because it interrogates privilege, illustrates how it is distributed among and between women and men and provides insights into partnerships that can be forged across genders. Furthermore, the institutional linkages of women’s organizations both within and across national contexts strengthens the ability of African countries to look internally and share their development best practices through sub-regional entities and the African Union. Finally, civil society needs to be redefined and contextualized using the perspectives of citizens at the grassroots level to produce holistic policy recommendations for all three tiers of governance (domestic, sub-regional and regional).

Engineering our Own Futures: Lessons on Holistic Development from Muslim Women’s Civil Society Groups in Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania

Les organisations de femmes musulmanes en Afrique de l’Est et de l’Ouest ont mis au point des stratégies efficaces pour atténuer les divers effets économiques et politiques internes de la mondialisation. Bien que la Chine et les pays BRICS fournissent des modèles de développement multipolaire, leurs résultats pourraient ne pas différer considérablement de ceux de leurs homologues occidentaux si les groupes qui sont souvent laissés en rade dans les processus décisionnels ne sont pas inclus. Il est urgent que les spécialistes des sciences sociales fassent de l’expérience des femmes africaines en tant que conceptrices du développement le point central de la théorisation afin d’éclairer la façon dont nous conceptualisons la participation économique et politique et mesurons l’inégalité. Le présent article se fondera sur des études de cas d’organisations non gouvernementales et communautaires locales de femmes à Kano, au Nigeria, à Tamale, au Ghana et à Dar es-Salaam, en Tanzanie, pour aider à développer des mécanismes de croissance économique durable et de représentation substantielle qui, je soutiens, peuvent permettre de générer des institutions étatiques plus réactives aux besoins de leurs citoyens.

L’intégration du genre comme cadre analytique est essentielle car elle interroge le privilège, illustre la façon dont elle est distribuée entre les femmes et les hommes et donne un aperçu des partenariats qui peuvent être forgés entre les sexes. De plus, les liens institutionnels des organisations de femmes à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur des pays renforcent la capacité des pays africains de se pencher sur les questions internes et de partager leurs meilleures pratiques de développement par le biais d’entités sous régionales et de l’Union africaine. Enfin, la société civile doit être redéfinie et contextualisée en tenant compte des points de vue des citoyens au niveau local pour produire des recommandations politiques globales pour les trois niveaux de gouvernance (national, sous régional et régional).

Keywords

Muslim women’s civil society organizations (CSOs) non- governmental (NGOs) community-based organizations (CBOs) Nigeria Ghana Tanzania

Statistics

Abstract views
3,006
Downloads
113

Citations

0 citations

Google Scholar

Citations counted by OpenAlex, an open index of scholarly literature, updated weekly. Google Scholar may count more.

Author Biography

  • Adryan Wallace

    The Africana Studies Program, University of Hartford, West Hartford, USA. Email: adwallace@hartford.edu

References

  1. Adamu, F., 1999, ‘A Double-Edged Sword: Challenging Women’s Oppression within Muslim Society in Northern Nigeria’, Gender and Development 7(1): pp. 56-61.
  2. Adedeji, A., 2004, The ECE: Forging a Future for Africa, in Unity and Diversity in Development Ideas: Perspectives from the UN Regional Commissions, ed. by Yves Berhelot, 2330306, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
  3. Alidou, O.D., 2005, Engaging Modernity: Muslim Women and the Politics of Agency in Postcolonial Niger, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
  4. Alvesson, M. and Y.D., Billing, 2009, Understanding Gender and Organizations, London: SAGE.
  5. Armijo, L., 2007, ‘The BRICS Countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) As an Analytical Category: Mirage or Insight’ in Asian Perspective 31(4): pp. 7-42.
  6. Callaway, B.J., 1987, Muslim Hausa Women in Nigeria: Tradition and Change, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
  7. Campbell, M.L. and K. Teghtsoonian, 2010, ‘Aid Effectiveness and Women’s Empowerment: Practices of Governance in the Funding of International Development’, Signs 36(1): pp. 177-202.
  8. Cornwall, A., 2003, ‘Whose Voices? Whose Choices? Reflections on Gender and Participatory Development’, in World Development 31(8): pp. 1325-1342.
  9. Cornwall, A., E. Harrison and A. Whitehead, 2004, ‘Introduction: Repositioning Feminisms in Gender and Development’, IDS Bulletin 35(4): pp. 1-10.
  10. Debusscher, P. and A. van der Vleuten, 2012, ‘Mainstreaming Gender in European Union Development Cooperation with Sub-Saharan Africa: Promising Numbers, Narrow Contents, Telling Silences’, International Development Planning Review 34(3): pp. 320-38.
  11. Esteves, P., Abdenur, E. and Gama, C., 2014, ‘BRICS and Global Governance Reform: a Two-Pronged Approach’ in Papers of the Fifth BRICS Academic Forum Partnership for Development Integration & Industrialization, pp. 52-59.
  12. Gammeltoft, P., 2008, ‘Emerging Multinationals: Outward FDI from the BRICS countries’, paper presented in the IV Globelics Conference at Mexico City, 22-24 September 2008.
  13. Glosny, M., 2010, ‘China and the BRICs: A Real (but Limited) Partnership in a Unipolar World’, in Polity 42: pp. 100-129.
  14. Guimei, Y., 2014, ‘BRICS Economic and Trade Cooperation with Africa’, in Papers of the Fifth BRICS Academic Forum Partnership for Development Integration & Industrialization, pp. 82-87.
  15. Hau, M., Scott, J. and Hulme, D., 2012, ‘Beyond the BRICs: Alternative Strategies of Influence in the Global Politics of Development’, in European Journal of Development Research 24: pp. 187-204.
  16. Imam, A., 1997, The Dynamics of WINing in Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures, edited by M.J. Alexander and C.T. Mohanty, pp. 280-307, New York: Routledge.
  17. Jamal, A., 2007, Islam: Islam and Modernities-Overview in the Encyclopaedia of Women & Islamic Cultures, Volume 5, Practices, Interpretations and Representations, edited by Suad J., pp. 209-15, Boston: Brill.
  18. Kabeer, N., 2005, ‘Gender equality and women’s empowerment: a critical analysis of the third Millennium Development Goal’, in Gender and Development 13(1): pp. 13-24.
  19. Kabir, H., 2011, Northern Women Development: A Focus on Women in Northern Nigeria, Vol.1, Print Serve Limited.
  20. Kimenyi, M. & Lewis, Z., 2011, ‘Foresight Africa: The Continents’ Greatest Challenges and Opportunities for 2011’ in Africa Growth Initiative, Brookings Institute.
  21. Kleinmon, S., 2007, Feminist Fieldwork Analysis: Qualitative Research Methods, Sage Publishers: London.
  22. Kubik, J., 2009, ‘Ethnography of Politics: Foundations, Applications, Prospects’ in Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Politics, edited by E. Schatz, pp. 25-52, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  23. Lemu, A., 1980, A Degree Above Them: Observations on the Condition of the Northern Nigerian Muslim Woman, Karachi, Pakistan: Islamic Education Trust.
  24. MacDonald, M., 1995, ‘Feminist Economics: From Theory to Research’, Canadian Journal of Economics 28(1): pp. 159-76.
  25. Maoulidi, S., 2002, ‘The Predicament of Muslim Women in Tanzania’, in Gender, ISIM Newsletter: 25.
  26. Mama, A., 1996, Women’s Studies and Studies of African Women During the 1990’s, Working Paper Series 5/96, Dakar: CODESRIA.
  27. Mama, A., 2001, ‘Challenging Subjects: Gender and Power in African Contexts’, African Sociological Review, 5(2), pp. 63-73, Plenary Address Nordic African Institute Conference ‘Beyond Identity Rethinking Power in Africa’, Uppsala 4-7 October 2001.
  28. Mikell, G., 1997, African Feminism: The Politics of Survival in Sub-Saharan Africa, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
  29. Mkandawire, T., 2014, ‘The Spread of Economic Doctrines and Policymaking in Postcolonial Africa’, in African Studies Review, 57(1): pp. 171-198.
  30. Moyo, D., 2009, Dead Aid: Why Aid is not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa, Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York.
  31. Narayan, U., 1997, Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third World Feminism, New York: Routledge.
  32. Nager, R. and S. Geiger, 2007, Reflexivity and Positionality in Feminist Fieldwork Revisited in (eds. A. Ticklell, E. Sheppard, J. Peck and T. Barnes) Politics and Practice in Economic Geography, London: Sage, pp. 267-278.
  33. Nikkhah, H., M. Redzuan, and A. Abu-Samah., 2012, ‘Development of ‘Power within’ among the Women: A Road to Empowerment’, Asian Social Science 8(1): pp. 39-46.
  34. Oyewumi, O., 1998, ‘De-confounding Gender: Feminist Theorizing and Western Culture, a Comment on Hawkesworth’s ‘Confounding Gender’, Signs 23(4): pp. 1049-62.
  35. Pittin, R., 1991, ‘Women, Work and Ideology in Nigeria’, Review of African Political Economy 19(52): pp. 38-52.
  36. Rathgeber, E.M., 1990, ‘WID, WAD, GAD: Trends in Research and Practice’, The Journal of Developing Areas 24(4): pp. 489-502.
  37. Ruwanpura, K.N., 2007, ‘Awareness and Action: The Ethno-gender Dynamics of Sri Lankan NGOs’, Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 14(3): pp. 317-33.
  38. Schoeman, M., 2011, ‘Of BRICS and Mortar: The Growing Relations between Africa and the Global South’, in the International Spectator: Italian Journal of International Affairs 46(1), pp. 33-51.
  39. Sharma, R., 2012, ‘Broken BRICs’, in Foreign Affairs November/December Comment 2012.
  40. Souza, A., 2014, ‘Brazil’s development cooperation in Africa: a new model?’, in Papers of the Fifth BRICS Academic Forum Partnership for Development Integration & Industrialization, pp. 96-107.
  41. Tripp, A., 2012, ‘Donor Assistance and Political Reform in Tanzania’, in UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research 37: pp. 1-26.
  42. Wallace, A., 2014, ‘Agency Through Development: Hausa Women’s NGOs & CBOs in Kano, Nigeria’, in Special Issue on Gender and Economics in Muslim Communities, in the Journal of Feminist Economics, No.(4): pp. 281-305.
  43. Wallace, A., 2014, ‘Influencing the Political Agenda from the Outside: A Comparative Study of Hausa Women’s NGOs and CBOs in Kano, Nigeria’, The National Political Science Review, Special Issue on Black Women and Politics-Identity, Power and Justice in the New Millennium, 16: pp. 67-80.

In this issue

Vol. 41 No. 3 (2016): Africa Development →