Women, inclusive citizenship, and the African state

One of the defining characteristics of state-society relationships consists of outlining the roles and responsibilities of the state toward its citizens. The more opaque the duties of the state are, the more difficult it becomes for groups to effectively challenge the state by mobilizing to address their exclusion and marginalization. Women are disproportionately impacted by instances of corruption, predatory behavior, and “big manism” by the political elite. In this chapter we argue that women’s efforts to address gender equality through making rights claims to the state is fundamentally a push to attain inclusive citizenship. Citizenship broadly refers to the mutual obligations of the state or community to its members; citizenship includes legal, economic, political, and social rights, which are defined and reinforced by both domestic and regional institutions. Therefore, we are situating our examination of gender inclusive citizenship within the regional frameworks outlined by the African Union’s Protocol on the Rights of Women 1 and the African Development Bank’s 2 approach to mainstreaming gender in development policy. Furthermore, the advocacy efforts in African countries of local women’s organizations, activists, and scholars to promote and mobilize around human rights and sustainable development will be explored.