-Efforts to achieve gender parity too slow
-Women leaders should step up efforts to achieve gender parity
Image: /REUTERS
The United Nations deputy secretary general Amina Mohammed has said global efforts to achieve gender parity is moving at unacceptable speed.
Addressing women leaders in Nairobi, Mohammed regretted the pace at which women are moving towards accessing job opportunities and higher levels of education is too slow.
“The pace is too slow. At this rate, it will take 50 years to achieve gender parity and probably 100 years to achieve gender equality,” she said.
Mohammed urged women leaders to commit themselves to addressing these inequalities and increase access and control over productive assets, financial services and basic infrastructure.
She noted that while two thirds of countries have reached gender parity in enrolment in primary education, girls of primary school age are still more likely to be out of school compared to boys.
She appealed the participants at the African Women Leaders Network (ALWN) conference to work extra hard in ensuring women occupy leadership positions.
AWLN is an initiative of African women leaders from various sectors, with the support of the African Union Commission and the United Nations, with aim to enhance the leadership of African women in the transformation of the continent in line with Africa Agenda 2063. It was started in June 2017.
AWLN supports the advancement of African women leaders through flagship projects, peer learning, experience sharing and cross-generational dialogues in order to bolster women’s contributions to building and sustaining peace, sustainable economies and social transformation.
Participants of the conference included President Uhuru Kenyatta, Former presidents Joyce Banda (Malawi), Bibi Ameenah Firdaus Gurib-Fakim (Mauritius) and Catherine Samba-Panza (Central African Republic) and Foreign Affairs CS Monica Juma.
Uhuru said there is need to develop mechanisms geared towards empowering women socially and economically.
He said more has to be done to enhance the potential of women in the society since their skills and abilities are largely underutilized.
The President regretted that women face a lot of hurdles raging from limited access to job opportunities, domestic violence, stigmatization and underrepresentation in almost all sectors of the society.
“Fifty per cent of the African population is women but regrettably, only 5 per cent of them are CEOs with only 20 per cent being board members of big organizations,” he pointed out.
He added : “We should be bold in empowering women. There is need to redouble efforts aimed at getting rid of attitudes that discriminate against women.”
Banda urged women who are already in leadership position to create opportunities for their colleagues.
“When we get to leadership positions, we must appoint women, especially young women. When I was a State House, I used all means to see women get leadership positions. I used my powers to appoint women to very senior positions in government,” she stated.
She called on men to open spaces for women and encourage them to go for top positions. “Push men out of your way if you have to. We need to mobilize ourselves as women leaders and create ways for younger women,” she told participants of the conference.