The engendering of both national and global economic polices is an important step as part of the process of moving along a continuum from patriarchy, through advocacy for women’s rights, through the ntellectual acceptance of these rights, to the entrenchment of equal economic rights for women as a policy concept.

Feminist perspectives
Two themes or arguments in feminist theories are used to analyse the trade regime. The first is the market-state dichotomy which underlies the trading system. This dichotomy delegitimises state interventions in the operations of the market and by so doing gives centrality to efficiency than people. The argument from a feminist perspective is that given women’s concentration in the reproductive sector of the economy and their reliance on state provisions of goods and services to carry out their reproductive burdens, these outcomes of the market-state dichotomy adversely affect the interests of women. The second theme relates to the discriminatory nature of the trade regime against third world states.

In the past and in the present, and it may be in the future, international financial institutions such as the World Bank and IMF continue to take a lead in setting the policy agenda for most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, because much of the region still depends on financial assistance from these institutions.

The drawback with the above axiomatic analysis, made by the managing director of the World Bank in 2008, is its lack of reference to the gendered dimensions of poverty, hunger and malnutrition and the significant roles that women play in agriculture. Recognition is given to the fact that there are huge diversities within and across countries on the African continent, and that Africa is not a monolithic entity.

Small and densely populated with an ethnically diverse and highly literate population, the island of Mauritius lies in the western side of the Indian Ocean, far from its major markets and suppliers. At the time of independence in 1968, the Mauritian economy was almost entirely dependent on the export of sugar and unemployment prevailed throughout the island. In the 1970s, the country embarked upon an Export Oriented Industrialisation (EOI) strategy, and the Mauritius EPZ was set up.

Gender Budgeting in Zimbabwe was initiated by a civil society organisation, the Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN) in 1999. The programme was intended to contribute to the reduction of gender inequalities and to promote gender sensitive development and implementation of macroeconomic policies to facilitate poverty reduction and the improvement of the welfare of women, men, girls and boys in Zimbabwe.

Studies1 conducted in the developing world reveal that the informal sector is an important feature in most of the developing nations of Africa, Latin America and Asia.

This article addresses the issues of gender in/ equality in professional employment in the light of the South African economic, labour market, and gender equality policy contexts. I outline current policies and consider whether they have been successful in addressing past gender inequalities in the labour market, and women's roles in society.

Current international research (Bertaud, 2008; Lall, van den Brink & Soni, 2008) is highlighting the link between the spatial location of housing developments, the local journey to work, and the overall level of economic participation among the poor.

The author, at the HSRC, led a project to investigate approaches to rapidly scaling up jobs in community care, especially focusing on early childhood development (ECD) services for children under the age of five. This project focus is based on analysis done in 2004 which showed that ECD (0-4) had great potential for employment creation: it was estimated that up to 325 000 workers would be needed in any one year by 2010/11 to achieve stated child development service targets. These opportunities tend to have a gender bias, and are geographically dispersed, so are well suited to addressing women’s unemployment.

Gender differences exacerbate the social, economic and cultural inequalities that define women's status in society. Gender differences and inequalities affect the extent to which individuals in society are able to enjoy basic security needs such as survival, safety, opportunity, dignity, agency and autonomy.

Post-1994 the South African government was quick to be part of numerous external gender equality declarations and conventions, simultaneously including a gender dimension into its policy instruments and departmental policies. This obliges it to ensure that gender equality is achieved at all levels and in society as a whole.

Tshepo Khumbane, affectionately known to many as Ma Tshepo, is a 71 year-old woman living on a smallholding near Cullinan where she produces grains, vegetables, maize and fruit using simple technologies. At first glance, she seems a simple and humble lady. Dressed in trousers and T-shirt on the morning of our visit, she starts by thanking us for coming to see her.

Rural households engage on (Chapman and Tripp, There is growing consensus that the rural economy 2004). This has led to the concept of livelihood is not based only on agriculture, but there is a diversification as an important survival strategy for diverse portfolio of livelihood creation activities that rural households

Large flows of migrants from the Southern African region to South Africa can be traced back to the discovery of the Kimberley diamond fields in1870, and gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 (Dodson 2008, Crush et al. 2005, Oucho 2006, Wentzel and Tlabela 2006).

Globally, the astounding pace and scale of urbanisation alongside efforts to unravel the dynamics behind the salient features of this process continues to be intensely debated. A particular cause for worry has been the overwhelming concentration of urbanisation in developing countries, with their overburdened city infrastructure and limited resources. What is of even greater concern to the development community is the fact that migrants flowing from the countryside to third world cities tend to settle in slums (Davis, 2006; Perlman, 2007).

A gender perspective means recognising that women stand at the crossroads between production and reproduction, between economic activity and the care of human beings, and therefore between economic growth and human development. They are workers in both spheres – those most responsible and therefore with most at stake, those who suffer most when the two spheres meet at cross-purposes, and those most sensitive to the need for better integration between the two. (Sen, 1995:12)

In August 2008, Heads of State of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) adopted the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development. A major advancement on the 1997 Gender and Development Protocol which had only one specific target, the new protocol identifies 23 targets, providing a road map for governments to advance progressively substantive gender equality.

Gender mainstreaming for the South African Public Service

In 1987 South Africa had a minority white government and a state of emergency with thousands imprisoned. Twenty-one years later, there is a progressive constitution, and the number of women in political office has increased significantly.