Nairobi — Addis Ababa is a city with a rich cultural legacy but it is also a poor city. Still, the poverty is no longer as evident as before. Its airport has been expanded and modernised. Some of its roads have been rebuilt by the Chinese. And, of course, it is home to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa - whose air-conditioned, hi-tech, wood-panelled conference rooms belie the stark reality just outside its gates.

It was thus with something of a sense of contradiction and unreality that last week-s 7th African Regional Conference on Women at the UNECA began. African women flowed in from across the continent, resplendent in boubous of every colour and variation, gold on their ears and round their wrists. At least Central and West African women were - East and Southern African women were considerably more subdued in our European-style clothes. We were there to evaluate progress in implementing the commitments to gender equality contained in the Beijing Platform for Action.

The 1990s were, without doubt, the decade of commitments to gender equality - through Beijing, through the International Conference on Population and Development. But moving from commitments to action has proven to be an entirely different story. Certainly, there has been progress: Girls' education is now at par with boys' in all five sub-regions - at least at the primary school level. Multiparty politics, the end of apartheid and post-conflict electoral processes have also provided opportunities for improvements in African women's political participation - Rwanda being, of course, the shining example.

But African women's poverty relative to men has actually worsened over the past decade. Violations of African women's human rights have also risen over the past decade. Violence against women continues to rise. And what is happening to African women in areas of armed conflict defies description.

What is meant by the phrase "lack of political will?" Our governments now clearly know that they must mouth the right phrases about gender equality and women's rights. What they seem not to know is what gender equality requires in practice: A flat-out refusal to compromise on African women's rights in favour of customary or religious law. And a consistent application of frameworks and tools for gender mainstreaming, particularly with respect to economic planning.

African women's labour in the reproductive economy continues to, in effect, subsidise the low levels of capital accumulation in the productive economy. This poses not only a threat to development and poverty reduction objectives but acts as an inhibitor to economic growth. It really is that simple.

We need to move from orthodox economic models to more heterodox models capable of addressing African women's unpaid reproductive work as well as work within the informal sector. The African context is one in which the majority of households are female-headed - and those that are not are fraught with inequalities between male and female control over productive resources and their benefits. Orthodox economic models are biased - assuming males are still the breadwinners and heads of households, focused on deflation and on commodified and traded outputs.

I am assuming here that poverty is still a concern for African governments. I am not being cynical. It is simply that one can become accustomed to the contradiction, the disparity between the UNECA's conference halls and the world outside.

The question is whether our governments have become equally accustomed to the disparities between African men and women, to our respective experiences of poverty. So much so that we no longer truly believe that transformation is possible - within our lifetimes.

L.Muthoni Wanyeki is executive director of the African Women's Development and Communication Network (Femnet)