ANC presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has spearheaded her campaign into the North West, capitalizing on Women's Month to advance her rhetoric on land and economic transformation.
Dlamini-Zuma, accompanied by a delegation of ANCWL members, began with meeting officials at the Madibeng municipality in Britz before visiting traditional leadership in Bapo ba Mogale.
During a speech after meeting the royal family in the area, she said women know that their forebears worked for the South Africa we live in today.
"Our forebearers, our grandmothers, they worked for it. It was not an act of charity, it was because of their struggles," she told a small delegation.
"We need to take the next generation to the next level. There's still a lot left to be done. In this month of women, we know that when we talk about poverty, the majority of the poor are women."
She said women need to be empowered so that poverty can be eradicated.
"If we are to eradicate poverty, we cannot do it without ensuring women are empowered. We also, in this month, say we are going to continue the struggle to ensure that women are safe. It is a struggle that we have to fight all together, men and women," she said.
"We are also very mindful of the fact that 23 years into our democracy, we have a government of the ANC which has political power, but we cannot say we have economic power. We are admitting that we don't have economic power."
Dlamini-Zuma, who has been pushing a rhetoric of land redistribution in many of her public appearances, said the minerals in South Africa must benefit the people.
"We also agree that most of us don't have land and we need land for many things. We are saying that the wealth of this country, the minerals of this country, must benefit our people. We cannot continue to have a rich South Africa and poor South Africans," she said.
"We need to make sure that when you have a mine, the engineers that work there are our people. The skills are very important. We need to train our young people in agriculture so they can create industries from the land."
She also spoke about change in the financial sector.
"We also need to be in command of the financial sector, it is in the hands of a few who don't understand us. We need to industrialise. It is not enough that we take the wealth out of the soil and send it to other countries raw. When we sell something raw, we get little for it," she said.
"Women must also be part of this Radical Economic Transformation. We know that when women have money, they first look at their home. It means if we give resources to women, we are giving resources to the family. No country can reach its full potential if women are left out."