Leveraging land and water sector reforms for trade

Constraints and opportunities for women producers in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Trade liberation and the creation of a single continental market of goods and services through the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will create huge economic benefits for economic growth and development across the continent. Nonetheless, the gender-differentiated effects of trade liberalisation resulting in the unequal distribution of benefits and costs of trade policies between women and men are well documented. International trade interacts with gender in different ways as conditioned by the distinct economic roles and positions of women and men within agricultural values chains. Adopting a Transformative Social Policy (TSP) framework––an approach to social policy placing emphasis on enhancing the productive capacities of individuals, households and communities; reconciling the social reproductive burdens of society with other social tasks and an ex-ante approach to poverty and vulnerability––the papers seeks to illuminate possible context-specific pathways through which women agricultural producers can be promoted to take advantage of market opportunities engendered by the implementation of AfCFTA. Preliminary evidence suggests that access to productive agricultural water by women, in a largely arid and drought-prone district, had not only enhanced their productive capacities but can be leveraged to take advantage of the trade opportunities coming with the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement. The Zimbabwean case provide starting points to think how African women can take advantage of the emerging continental economic opportunities, not as wage workers as been the trend but producers for regional and international markets.