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Dlamini-Zuma chides African states for not electing enough women MPs

Stood up for Zuma: Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma
Stood up for Zuma: Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma

In more than ten African elections held last year, only Ethiopia and Sudan have managed to attain the African Union’s target of electing women to more than 30% of seats in Parliament.

AU Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma complained about this poor gender empowerment performance in her opening remarks to the AU’s executive council of ministers on the eve of the AU’s weekend summit on Wednesday.

The theme of the summit is Human Rights with a Focus on the Rights of Women.

“We must do better in the elections of 2016,” she said about electing women MPs.

The chairperson added, however, that since the AU had introduced the 1st African Gender Scorecard at its summit last year, countries had taken steps to do better on the indices which were measured.

“The 2016 gender scorecard will focus on indicators related to the theme of human rights for this year, and we are in the process of developing these.”

Last year was the AU’s Year of Women’s empowerment and member countries focused on women’s land rights, on equal pay for equal work, the rights of informal traders, access for women farmers to technology, capital, inputs and the right to education and health.

“We continue to push ahead with such programmes as the Campaign for the Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA) and other health programmes. We also focussed on issues of water, sanitation and affordable and clean energy, as key to women’s and community empowerment.”

Africa had worked very hard to ensure that the world arrived at the binding global climate deal in Paris last December, though it had fallen short of the target needed to reverse climate change.

Africa had been playing its part, Dlamini Zuma said, citing the Great Green Wall of the Sahara/Sahel project, the relentless work to save Lake Chad and Lake Niger, the launch of the Africa Renewable Energy initiative and the commitments to climate-smart agriculture.

She quoted the UN Environment Program as saying that “the list of successful examples of green investments in Africa is far greater than what is generally imagined”.

She noted too that Africa was only four years away from its 2020 deadline to “silence the guns” to end the suffering of women, men and children, in the few countries still plagued by conflicts and in the regions still plagued by conflicts and in the regions facing the threats of terrorism and violent extremism. She mentioned Mali, South Sudan, Darfur, Libya and Somalia.

She did not mention the crisis in Burundi, even though that is widely expected to dominate the summit.

Most analysts believe the leaders will debate the dilemma of whether or not to send a peacekeeping force to the country to stem growing violence sparked by President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to run for a third term as president, despite the two-term limits in the constitution.

He has opposed the proposed force and so the AU leaders will have to decide whether they should intervene anyway, despite Burundi’s opposition.

– African News Agency (ANA)

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