African women and politics

By Isabella Gyau Orhin
After joining Africa's colonial-era movements to struggle for freedom for their country and themselves, African women were marginalized after independence. Many went into the nonprofit or civil-society sector - or ended up just singing and dancing at airports as part of arrival ceremonies for male politicians. However, the trend has changed now and African women are no longer spreading out their cloth on the floor for their male counterparts.
Instead they are rubbing shoulders with them on political platforms.
This was more evidently when Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was sworn in as the first female President of Liberia: something even the United States of America which is touted as the doyen of democracy is yet to experience.
This week in Accra, a Network of African Women Ministers and Parliamentarians are meeting to build their capacity in order to increase their numbers and make more positive impact on the lives of their people.
From Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Ghana and Kenya, the women Parliamentarians say they have been marginalized for far too long, and are now on the warpath to claim what is rightfully theirs.
“This training is to equip women leaders with tools to fight the sexual inequalities and iniquities which limit our central role in development,” says Theresah Amerley Tagoe a Member of Parliament in Ghana and the Chairperson of the Parliamentary Caucus on Population and Development.
The Minister for women and Children’s Affairs Hajia Alima Mahama said Ghanaian women have suffered political exclusion over the years.
She cited the case of Ghana’s Local elections where women formed only 7percent of the 70 percent elected assembly people.
She said the meeting was timely, coming at a time when Ghana is preparing for the local government elections in September where the participation of women is expected to improve.
“For us in Ghana, we believe keeping girls in school is the beginning of finding a lasting solution to the problem,” Hajia Alima Mahama told her audience.
The drive to promote women in decision-making positions worldwide gained momentum during the 1980s and early 1990s through a series of international conferences. Further impetus came from the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China, in 1995, which called for at least 30 per cent representation by women in national governments. In September 2000 at the UN Millennium Summit in New York, world leaders pledged to "promote gender equality and the empowerment of women as effective ways to combat poverty, hunger and disease and to stimulate development that is truly sustainable." At that meeting, world leaders adopted the goal of gender equality and seven others, known collectively as the Millennium Development Goals. Since then, the number of women in leadership positions has been rising.
"Study after study has shown that there is no effective development strategy in which women do not play a central role," says UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. When women are fully involved, he notes, the benefits are immediate - families are healthier and better fed and their income, savings and investments go up. "And what is true of families is also true of communities and, in the long run, of whole countries."
According the African Renewal magazine of the United Nations, women's representation in national parliaments across sub-Saharan Africa equals the world average of about 15 per cent.
Despite being one of the poorest regions in the world, the level of women's representation in parliament in sub-Saharan Africa is higher than in many wealthier countries, observes UNIFEM in its Progress of the World's Women 2002 report. In the US, France and Japan for instance, women hold slightly more than 10 per cent of parliamentary seats.
The African Renewal magazine also says between 2000 and 2002, elections were held in 23 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with increases in women parliamentarians in 14 of them.
Most of the countries that have achieved significant increases in women's participation have done so through the use of quotas - a form of affirmative action in favour of women. Worldwide, about 30 of the world's more than 190 countries apply some form of female quotas in politics.
In South Africa too, women played a key role in the national liberation struggle and today are benefiting from a quota system adopted by the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
The World Bank concluded in 2001 that "women can be an effective force for the rule of law and good governance" - and has increased its support of women-oriented programs.
“Gender equality and women’s empowerment are key to all population and development programmes,” says Virginia Ofosu-Armaah formerly of the UN Office in New York.
“We cannot effectively implement programmes without gender equality.”
Not satisfied with progress so far, Mrs. Ofosu Armaah believes there is hope for the future. “We have not reached there yet,” she says “there is a major task ahead of us, to bridge the gap.”
The Resident Coordinator of the UN systems in Ghana Daouda Toure said the challenges of fighting poverty, disease and discrimination require more coordinated effective organization to achieve success.
“There is therefore the need to involve all stakeholders, government, development partners civil society organizations and leaders at all levels of society to improve the quality of life of our people,” he said.
Formed about 12 years ago, the Network of African Women Ministers and Parliamentarians has remained an informal structure bringing together national associations and networks of women ministers and Parliamentarians currently in office or those who were formerly in office in their countries and are willing to participate on a voluntary basis in the promotion and attainment of the priority objective of the International Conference of Population and Development (ICPD) held in 1994, in Cairo and the Beijing Platform of Action of 1995.
It is in this light that UNFPA accepted to strengthen the network, within the framework of its regional work by funding eight capacity building meetings over 10 months across the continent together with the Centre for African Family Studies.
“It is my hope that the Accra Capacity building Workshop will further sharpen your skills and leadership qualities in he area of advocacy for gender equity,” Toure said.