No One Benefits If Women Are Held Back

The International Women’s Day came and went. I have been seeing women in positions of power and influence and I thought we had made great strides in achieving gender equality until I looked at the National Assembly website.

Of the 166 Members of Parliament, only 30 or 18% are women. Of the 29 full cabinet ministers only nine are women. They say numbers don’t lie and for sure in this case we are still far from matching our pronouncements with action. We still have very few women in key decision making positions, especially elective ones.

Even in other fields, it is pretty much the same. It has taken the country more than 50 years to produce the first female fighter pilot. Thokozile Muwamba loves aerobatics and her ambition is to become the first female air force commander in the country. I am sure very few male folks will tolerate this! As she noted in the interview the BBC, “the aircraft knows no sex”.

https://web.facebook.com/bbcafrica/videos/vb.285361880228/10155111104985229/?type=2&theater

Like Thokozile, over the past few decades, women around the world have been pushing boundaries in educational achievement, political representation, and economic participation—yet, gender gaps remain.

Unfortunately, most women are still shunted in the kitchens and fields in the villages as men continue to claim the lion’s share from the national cake. Are men smarter than women to claim what they have? The answer is definitely no. I have seen terrible men in society but I have also witnessed smart women.

Globally, just 55% of the women participate in the labour force compared with 80 percent of men—and women are only now earning what men did a decade ago. I am sure the statistic above does not take into account the many other jobs that women perform.

As countries around the world seek to grow their economies and reduce inequality, tapping into the huge potential of women can be a game changer, says IMF Director General Christine Lagarde. Recent analytical work—including that done at the IMF—clearly demonstrates the compelling business case for women’s empowerment. Everyone has a role to play—including governments, businesses, and international institutions.

Recent research by the IMF shows increasing women’s participation in the labor force can deliver significant macroeconomic gains. For example, the research says, if Latin American countries raised their female labor participation to the average of the Nordic countries (about 60 percent), GDP per capita could be up to 10 percent higher.

When the Rwandan delegation went to Beijing, China, in 1995 for the landmark women’s conference, just a year after the genocide in their country, the East African nation was cited as one of the worst violators of women’s rights. Today, as the world marks 22 years since the Beijing Declaration on gender equality, Rwanda leads other countries with women making up more than 60% of parliamentarians.

In the words of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, “No one benefits if women are held back. We have to change mindsets, not just the laws”. The trend in Rwanda is positive. If it continues, the country may just meet the new 2030 deadline for gender equality in all sectors of the economy.

Rwanda has made great progress in promoting gender equality, largely driven by strong Government commitment. Rwanda was second in the world according to the 2009 Social Watch Gender Equity Index, with only Sweden having a higher score. Gender equality is enshrined in the constitution and Rwanda was the first country in the world to have more than 50% female members of Parliament.

Rwanda provides lessons for countries like Zambia. While Zambia has a ministry of Gender, in Rwanda the government has gone further by by adding a gender monitoring office, a commitment to gender-based budgeting, and in recent years there has been a strong emphasis on fighting gender based violence. Women have the same rights to inherit land as men. Girls are equally as likely to attend school as boys and there is a Girls Education Policy and Implementation Plan in place.

However, a gender gap remains in public sector higher education, particularly in science and engineering, but women are taking advantage of the opportunities to study in private higher education institutions. Although the majority of women, especially poor women in rural areas, have yet to benefit, the gap between men and women employed in non-farm work is widening.

Going forward, it is clear that achieving gender equality will require not just transforming economies to reduce inequalities, but also getting countries to accelerate the implementation of commitments they made to women 20 years ago.