Commonwealth Alumnus Lucia Makamure is a gender expert and journalist, with over 10 years’ experience of working in public policy and social justice in Africa. Growing up in a patriarchal society, Lucia has experienced gender inequality first-hand, from her experiences in school where boys and girls were exposed to different education and opportunities, to her first job on the political desk of a newsroom, where she struggled to be taken seriously due to her age and gender.
These early experiences fuelled Lucia’s desire to elevate her voice and that of other women and ensure that future generations don’t go through these experiences.
Shaping policy
At the time of her Commonwealth Scholarship, Lucia was working as an Alliance and Partnerships Manager at GenderLinks, a South African women’s rights organisation which works with over 600 partners to promote gender equality.
Lucia was motivated to complete an MA in Public Policy and Management at the University of York through a Commonwealth Distance Learning Scholarship to enhance her academic skills in policy making and policy analysis and achieve more impact in her work.
Studying at the University of York exposed Lucia to students from different countries and working in different policy fields, which has enabled her to draw on these experiences and perspectives in her career.
Being a distance learner also had advantages to her work.
“I was able to study whilst I was working. At some point, I found the two complementing each other. I was able to bring my experience from the field as a gender activist into my studies, and also to bring the new knowledge, the skills that I was getting from my studies, into my work.”
One example Lucia shares was the enhancement in her research skills whilst completing her Masters, which are critical in policy-related work.
At GenderLinks, she was responsible for coordinating the production of an annual publication, the SADC Gender Barometer, which provides an audit of the status of gender in Southern Africa. The report required in-depth and accurate research on gender indicators and statistics in the region. Lucia shares that her improved research skills were critical in improving the quality of the research she completed for this report and GenderLinks more broadly.
Considering gender when looking at macroeconomics
It was also during her studies that Lucia developed a deep interest in macroeconomic issues, which has shaped her career post-Master’s.
“I think I can safely say that had it not been for this degree programme, my career would not have taken the direction where it’s going, because it was through that work that I actually realised the underrepresentation of women in macroeconomic issues.”
Applying her academic and research skills to the issue, Lucia identified that it wasn’t only a matter of representation but that there were deep structural issues around macroeconomics where gender issues were severely undermined.
The African continent has experienced many cycles of debt distress and relief programmes implemented by actors from the Global North which have been unsuccessful. One of the biggest factors in the failure of these programmes and interventions was that the debt narrative on the continent was mostly being shaped by research from the Global North, which was divorced from the lived reality of those on the continent.
In 2021, Lucia joined the Open Society Foundation (OSF) as a Fiscal Justice Program Lead, with a determination to change this narrative. She sought out academics in or from the continent to help decolonise the existing knowledge on sovereign debt. Through this work, Lucia engaged universities and academics from across the continent, including the University of Pretoria in South Africa, the University of Nairobi in Kenya and the University of Makerere in Uganda.
Through this partnership, OSF produced research and publications to change the profile of authoritative voices on debt in the continent.
“For the first time, we had young Black people being leading voices on providing recommendations on how the global economic architecture can be reformed. We had young women, some of them even first-time authors, contributing to these books.”
For Lucia, one of the most important messages from this work was that there must be a level of respect for local knowledge that exists in the affected communities. She stresses that debt is often looked at from a purely economic perspective. However, in focusing on the economic aspect only, those leading the research and interventions are missing a crucial understanding of what debt looks and feels likes to those most affected.
“You find that most of the time, the work that is being produced is lacking that human face to the challenge. At some point, there is a need to bring the two together. The theory and the lived realities. Since 2021, that’s the work I’ve been trying to advance. That in as much as the macroeconomics space is mostly a space for legal people and economists, we can’t leave behind the people who are living through that crisis.”
Over the last three months, working as an independent consultant, Lucia has been involved in the development of a policy paper on the feminist foreign policy in sovereign debt and how it can be used as a potential tool to resolve the debt crisis in Africa.
Working with local government
Local government can be one of the closest ways for national governments to impact ordinary citizens. Implementing the right policies and interventions at this level can bring about transformational change.
Lucia shares that her work on gender mainstreaming, working with local government to integrate gender equality perspectives at all policy and programme stages, has resulted in some of the biggest changes she’s seen to support women. This has included the introduction of gender responsive budgeting, the provision of sexual and reproductive health services to women, and a change in general attitudes and behaviour towards gender issues at the local government level.
When she first started working in this space in 2011, Lucia notes that gender work was mostly associated with women. Outreach programmes and research was conducted solely with or for women, isolating their experiences and needs and preventing a community-wide approach on gender mainstreaming.
Lucia is pleased to share there has been significant progress to date. As part of her recent work producing an impact report on gender-based violence (GBV) in South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lucia conducted interviews with men and women to understand the scale and experiences of GBV during this period. In one interview, a male interviewee shared that he had led an open discussion with men in his community on GBV and that following this, other men have confessed to him about abusing their partners and asked for his help.
Despite these instances of progress, Lucia comments that change is slow.
“With this work, we always have this saying that sometimes you move three steps ahead on one thing, and then the following day you wake up and suddenly you are two steps backwards. It’s really hard to sustain the gains. But I would say, I think, now, as a society, we are becoming alive to the reality that we can’t afford to treat women differently from men.”
Achieving Commonwealth Scholarship goals
Lucia’s career has gone from strength to strength since her first role in a newsroom. Thinking about the impact of her Commonwealth Scholarship, she shares:
“I think the combination of my experience and the skills and knowledge that I gained through the Master’s made me a better advocate for the issues that I advocate for. And I have witnessed significant growth in my career where before the studies, I was working for a regional organisation mostly focusing on Southern Africa. And ever since the Commonwealth Scholarship, I have found myself leading initiatives at the global as well as at the continental level.”
Looking at where she is now, Lucia feels she has fulfilled the goals outlined in her Commonwealth Scholarship application.
“In my statement for the Scholarship, I had mentioned that a few years after the Scholarship, I want to be at the centre of policymaking, policy advocacy, and being recognised as a leading voice in this space…
“Two weeks ago, I received the Atlantic Fellowship for Social and Economic Equity from the London School of Economics, which I think is a testament to the work that I have done in the continent, as well as the meaningful contribution that I’ve brought to the space in which I’m working in.”
Lucia is a 2016 Commonwealth Distance Learning Scholar from Zimbabwe. She completed an MA in Public Policy and Management at the University of York.
