The Organization of African Unity (OAU), the regional body founded in 1963 to
promote unity on the continent, devoted little attention to women’s and gender issues
during its four-decade existence. The OAU Charter made no references to women. The
OAU did not establish a Women’s Unit until 1992, and insufficient human and financial
resources continually hindered the Unit’s effectiveness.
It was never staffed by more
than two full-time professionals, and four layers of bureaucracy separated the Women’s
Unit from the Secretary-General, the OAU’s executive arm. This distance impeded the
Women’s Unit’s ability to attract funding and to develop programming. The OAU’s
institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women, in short, were extremely weak.
In addition, women were poorly integrated into OAU decision-making structures.
As late as 1997, the OAU was known as a male-dominated institution. Describing the
OAU in 1997, Joyce Mends-Cole, the Senior Regional Gender Advisor for the United
Nations Development Program (UNDP) stated: “The OAU Secretariat is a male bastion.
Women are nowhere” (Made 1997). Yetunde Teriba then a Women’s Affairs Officer in
the OAU’s Women’s Unit indicated that “the OAU is a reflection of the member states.
There are not many women in key decision-making positions both within the OAU
Secretariat and within African governments” (Made 1997).
Less than a decade later, the international organization that has succeeded the
OAU—the African Union (AU)—has taken a radically different stance towards gender
equity issues.
The distinction between the two organizations is perhaps most visible in
1
This decision was partially in response to 1991 Abuja Treaty on the creation of an African Economic
Community. Article 75 of the Abuja Treaty, for example, called on member states to “to formulate,
harmonize, coordinate and establish appropriate policies and mechanisms for the full development of the
African woman through the improvement of her economic, social and cultural conditions.” Organization of
African Unity, Treaty establishing the African Economic Community, June 3, 1991,
,
Accessed August 11, 2005.
2
The AU was launched in Durban, South Africa in July 2002.
2
Convention