Despite all researches made by human right international organizations which are proving and demonstrating the positive influence of women in the development in several countries in Africa, many society have failed to recognize and stop women discrimination in our community endeavors. One of the aims of women’s right is to analyze and debate the question about equality and development. In May 2011, at its 50th Anniversary Meeting, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD, recognizing the importance of gender equality, has embarked on a Horizontal Project in Gender Equality in three areas key to economic opportunity and targeted: Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship.

The OECD is an international organization of thirty countries (with South Africa as the only African country in procedure of integration) that accept the principles of representative democracy and a free market economy. According to recent estimations of the OECD, “Women in Africa provide approximately 70 per cent of agricultural labor and produce about 90 per cent of all food. Women’s economic activity rate, which measures the percentage of people who furnish the supply of labor for the production of economic goods, ranks highest compared to other regions of the world (including the OECD countries) with a value of 61.9. However, women are predominantly employed in the informal sector or they occupy low-skill jobs”. The OECD added that “this can be illustrated by considering the percentage of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector, which scores lowest among all regions of the world with a value of only 8.5 per cent”. The World Bank in its policy research for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management published in June 2011 the working paper titled “does Female Empowerment Promote Economic Development?”

According to that research, “money in the hands of women leads to higher spending on public goods, and in particular to higher spending on child-related goods. These observations have already led to a trend in development policy to target more resources to women and more generally to envision female empowerment as a key measure to foster economic development. That manual added that “consumer durables, and general household public goods spending may vary with the level of development”. Survey made by the World Bank, using data from the Ghana Living Standards Surveys in 1991/92 and 1998/99, finds that in household where women own a larger share of assets (land, savings, and business assets), the share of expenditures on food and education is larger, but the share of alcohol expenditures is smaller. The share of medical expenses, on the other hand, decreases with female asset ownership. The authors argue that medical expenses are primarily curative and speculate that women with higher bargaining power are able to keep their families healthier. However in other region of Africa like in South Africa, female assets have a negative affect on food budget shares and in Ethiopia that ownership increases boys' schooling relatively more than girls' schooling.

That fact could find an explanation in the women’s incapacity to handle their financial independence, and also because of the legal system, the mentality and traditional practice in the area. Despite all researches made by human right international organizations which are proving and demonstrating the positive influence of women in developing countries in the world especially in Africa, many seems to disregard that important evidence. The weak status of women in the formal economy of Africa has many reasons: Insufficient access to key resources such as education and health are two important contributing factors; inequalities are based especially on social norms and traditions; and finally discriminated attitudes are deliberately related in the family code of most of African countries. Those code contains several measure which limited right of inheritance of propriety and lands, right of ownership such as legal act, access to bank loans and bank account. Polygamy is pervasive in many African countries and property rights over land are not granted equally to men and women. Even though, some countries have broken the tradition, customs that discriminate against women remain strong According to the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of women, (UN WOMEN), the analysis of the current context in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) makes obvious the existing persistence gender imbalance in all the domains of economical, social, cultural and political development. Congolese women constitute 53% of the DRC population: their visibility and contribution to food security for the survival and running of the Congolese society is undeniable and internationally recognized.

However, studies and recent investigations show that the position of Congolese women in several domains of national life remains preoccupying low in comparison with men. Access of women to decision making tables, as well as to national economical resources and production factors remains very limited. The situation has deteriorated in latter years with the negative effects of wars in repetition, to the current persistent insecurity. In fact, 61.2% of Congolese women live underneath the poverty threshold against 51.3% of men, while 44% of women cannot attain economical timeliness1, 2, and 4. Furthermore, in the DRC, the situation of gender-based violence; particularly domestic violence on women and young girls is very worrying. DR Congo law is weak in terms of supporting financial independence for women. However, according to Mayimona Kimbi, a Congolese lawyer and program assistant of the ‘Forum of Congolese Organization in South Africa’ (FOCAS): “some progress had been made through the family code in DRC recently; married women are legally free to sign all acts and contract. She can open a bank account or a trend register without to submit for their husbands”. For several years Women have very limited access to land. By law, the right to land concessions can be given to men and women without distinction but traditional attitudes and customs that discriminate against women remain strong, and certain institutions still ask for marital authorization often by ignorance of the new law.

In Zambia, Women’s labor market share is more and less hopeful. The labor participation rate of the 15-64 of age overall is 71%, with 61% for women. The 2005 women’s share in employment was highest in agriculture with over 50%, followed by restaurants and hotels (49%), community, social and personal services (48%), and commerce (45%). The problem in Zambia remain in family matter, women face discrimination in the area of inheritance, as the courts rarely intervene to apply the civil law in such cases, customary law prevails. According to a 1989 law, widows have the right to inherit 20 per cent of their husbands’ property; by contrast, widowers are entitled to inherit all of their wives’ property. In polygamous marriages which are widespread and legally permitted within every type of marriage, half of the inheritance is divided between the children (irrespective of gender) and the remainder is split equally between the wives. Despite the 1989 law, most families follow customary practice in which the deceased’s family claims it is entitled to seize the estate. This practice leaves the widow and children in a precarious situation. Although that practice appears to be losing ground, the most women are educated and informed; the most customary practice has less influence. Relating her opinion about the family matter in Zambia Sara Longwe, a Zambian women’s rights activist and chairperson of ‘African Women’s Development and Communication Network’ (FEMNET), said: Customary laws were unwritten and administered in male-dominated local courts mainly presided over by untrained justices with patriarchal attitudes. The Government intended to ensure that women and men were treated equally in marriage and family matters and were given the right to decide freely whether or when to have a child. In regards of women empowerment and African development, she remarks in 2003 at ‘The Hunger Project’ in new York when she’s been declared as Africa Prize Laureate winner: “Zambia It is now some twenty years since the general realisation that gender issues are central to agricultural development in the Third World. Gender issues are especially important in Africa, where women produce 80% of the food, especially in crops. Where men are agriculturally active, it is mainly in rearing and herding cattle. It may seem strange now, but the realization of women’s importance seems at the time to have been a new and startling revelation to development theorists from the more developed countries, where farmers are mostly men. But perhaps it was also an understandable mistake, since African men are very much in control of the farming, in the sense that they control such matters as land allocation and utilization, and collecting the agricultural surplus. They are also in control of their wives. Women are farmers in the technical sense, in that they are the ones who actually do the agricultural work. But at the level of control over land, labor and capital, it is men who are the farmers.

Therefore we may perhaps excuse the Western observer for seeing the man as the farmer, and the woman as his helper. A young entrepreneur suggested that: “to give financial power to women would destroy the true value of the African family where the man is the leader and the woman his co-leader, even though professionally women should gain equality, at home I’m expecting my wife as my second, and more money in her hand, land and propriety, means more power to her hand, and that could lead her to disrespect me at home, and I can’t give my land to my daughter because when she’ll get married, her husband and kids will be the direct beneficiary and that make no sense, because the heritage of my own blood would end up for another man blood, it’s a question of logic that has nothing against women empowerment” As in Zambia, legislation in Botswana falls short of granting women an equal level of protection within the family context. Traditional law allows for polygamy and both common and traditional laws grant children the right to inheritance from their parents. By contrast, under most traditional laws, wives are not entitled to inherit the bulk of the estate of a deceased husband. This is particularly true for high-value property. A similarly discriminatory practice is that traditional laws place unmarried women under the guardianship of their fathers and, upon the father’s death, under the guardianship of his heir(s), who is also granted ownership of any assets. The Namibian family code same ownership rights is given to women as men, but are obstructed by tradition. Women are particularly disadvantaged in regard to access to land.

The land reform law of 2002 placed all land under state ownership. Local customary authorities allocate the right to use this land to individuals and, in theory, men and women have equal access to community plots. However, women’s rights are rarely recognized by tribal chiefs. In addition, many single women with children lack the technical resources to farm the land allocated to them. The Namibian Constitution states that all citizens have the right to acquire and dispose of property. The Married Persons Equality Act grants men and women equal access to property other than land, and allows either spouse to exercise this right without the partner’s consent. Discrimination persists in customary marriages, which are not legally required to be registered; under customary law, husbands have the power to claim control over their wives’ property. Some NGOs specifically target women to facilitate their access to loans or credit. Nigerian women have very limited ownership rights. Civil law entitles women to have access to land, but certain customary laws stipulate that only men have the right to own land. In practice, women can obtain access to land solely through marriage or family. As a result, women represent a tiny portion of landowners in the country and little is known about how much authority they have to administer their land holdings. Access to bank loans is restricted by their limited financial resources and the difficulties they have obtaining the necessary guarantees.

In certain cases, financial institutions demand prior consent of the woman’s husband before granting a loan. The National Poverty Eradication Programme and other micro-credit schemes have been established to assist women, but access is still low; statistics show that less than one-third of loans in Nigeria are awarded to women. In Uganda, Traditional practices persist despite the government’s recent adoption of a new land law designed to improve women’s access to land and grant them the right to manage their property. The Constitution upholds women’s rights to have access to property other than land; consequently women are free to administer their property without their husbands. In South Africa customary law failing the measure adopt by the government in relation with equality, however the country is been records as one of which enforcement of anti-discrimination measures by giving more employment opportunity to women then enhancing women’s economic independence. The customary law remain strong in rural area. Shamillah Wilson, an independent feminist consultant and CEO of Sowilo Leadership Solutions in South Africa, wrote in her novel titled ‘Feminist & Women’s Movement Building in Southern Africa’, published by Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) this year; where she related: “Women progressive gains are under threat in southern Africa, due to high levels of misogyny, which have the potential to unravel the political, legal and policy gains that women have secured, including significant representation in parliament. In the diverse political cultures within the region, where intolerance, authoritarianism and sexism continue to thrive, women have striven to transform the situation by participating in the political sphere…the rise of various religious and cultural fundamentalisms are posing an additional threat to women’s rights in many places” The discriminatory attitudes and practices that prevent women from accessing land are a major obstacle in major deals with tertiary institutions, as most commercial banks will not approve loans unless women hold title deeds as a guarantee.

Several NGOs operate micro-credit programmes that specifically target women, but that isn’t sufficient in term of further and durable development. The family code and social norm has a depth role in the society. Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia online definite the family law as an area of the law that deals with family-related issues and domestic relations including: the nature of marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships; the issues arising throughout marriage, including spousal abuse, legitimacy, adoption, surrogacy, paternity fraud and testing, child abuse, and child abduction the termination of the relationship and ancillary matters including divorce, annulment, property settlements, alimony, and parental responsibility orders. In the united state the family code also definite the matter of child custody and visitation, child support and alimony awards. In relation with that definition, it’s clear that the family code has in crucial importance in regard of gender equality and also the code of family advantage or disadvantage women employment. There are positive examples as well, especially North African countries. Some progress in reducing the impact of discriminatory social institutions and improving the status of women had been made. As an example, Tunisia in the 1960s opened to the West and abolished many traditional practices under the presidency of the charismatic Habib Bourguiba. A similar movement has recently begun in Morocco with King Mohammed VI who changed the prevailing family code to allow more rights to women. . Many post-conflict countries have recognized the importance of including women in peace-building and reconstruction and have instituted measures to ensure women's participation in new democratic institutions.

The national constitutions of Rwanda and Burundi now include provisions to reserve seats for women. In 2003, elections in Rwanda saw the greatest proportion of women elected to any parliament in history. These elections were the first since the internal conflict of 1994. In South Africa and Mozambique, the introduction of quota mechanisms by political parties meant that, in 2004, post-conflict and post-crisis countries ranked among the highest in the world in terms of women's representation. In Eritrea, Mozambique and South Africa, women are comprised between 22 per cent, to 35 per cent of the legislature. Moreover, in term of giving women economical opportunity, the Economic Intelligence Unit agency based at the United States, classified South Africa in second position with the quota of 60.3%, after Mauritius with 64%. Such as initiative, give a hope about the future of gender equality matter in Africa, conversely there is a lot of exertion to do on it. Redesigning the social norms in educating the next generations about the advantageous part of equality for a global development in Africa may help to intend better policies that can improve the social economic status of women in the long-run.

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