Minister Vows to Increase Percentage of Women in Senior Management

Women will occupy 50 percent of senior management positions in government by March 2009, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, minister of public services and administration was quoted saying recently.

Speaking to the Governance and Administration cluster briefing in May, Fraser-Moleketi said research shows women occupied just 8 percent of senior management in 1995 and grew to 33 percent in 2007, according to BuaNews, a South African news service focusing on government. Although these numbers are lower than expected, Fraser-Moleketi said she believes the country will still meet its mark next year.

But finding and grooming women leaders is a challenge, especially for women with familial responsibilities.

“Although we are gender sensitive in this country, it is clear that parenting is still mostly the role of the women,” Fraser-Moleketi told BuaNews.

Women Political Leaders Hit a Glass Ceiling in Mauritania

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

Mauritania is often held up as a beacon when it comes to the proportion of women elected to political office – a 20 percent minimum quota was instituted in 2006 – but experts told IRIN once in power many women are still sidelined from taking important political decisions.

“While the quota is a major step forward, changing the situation of Mauritanian women is still a slow process because their colleagues discourage them from leading on issues,” Aminettou Mint Ely, head of the local non-governmental organisation (NGO) Association of Women (AFCF), told IRIN.

“As a result, many of these women cannot fight to overturn discriminatory laws in the country… such as those barring working women from claiming a pension, or paying elected women less than men for the same posts,” she said. [AllAfrica]

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Zimbabwe: Women in Politics

Women marching in the 50-50 campaign last year.

Late last year, numerous NGOs in Zimbabwe embarked on a campaign to include women in 50 percent of the campaigns in the country’s elections on Saturday. Instead, Zimbabwean women, who are half the country’s population, will make up just 13 percent of candidates for the House of Assembly and 30 percent of candidates for the Senate, according to statistics provided by the Women in Politics Support Unit. In an interview with a reporter from Inter Press Service, Luga Shaba, executive director of Women’s Trust, discusses why the NGOs did not meet their mark.