ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses Southern African Development Community women’s roles in the informal development sectors: mining, trading and agriculture. The intention is to find entry points for designing an approach that leads to developmental regionalism that is anchored on gender responsiveness. The constraints women face as equal drivers and actors in developmental regionalism are deeply rooted and can only be tackled first, at the national level, through the implementation of gender sensitive policies and developing relevant frameworks that would support gender responsiveness across different sectors. Gender remains a contested topic and many of the concepts used in reference to the theme are often used interchangeably. A number of studies have demonstrated Southern African women's significant contribution to agriculture, artisanal mining, the formal employment sector in both the service and manufacturing industries, and the being the largest group in the informal sector especially in cross-border trade.
