PRE-CONFERENCE SEMINAR FOR ELECTED WOMEN LOCAL GOVERNMENT LEADERS Decentralized governance and Women s Presence in Leadership Positions Ms Dede Ekoue, Deputy Resident Representative UNDP Cameroon May 26, 2008 On behalf of UNDP Cameroon, I would like to thank the organizers of this this pre-conference seminar for elected women local government leaders. It is a the privilege to exchange such a distinguished audience some key insights on Decentralized Governance and Women s Presence in Leadership Positions. Decentralization is key to ensure that actions are taken at the lowest appropriate level to sustainable fashion and efficiently promote human development. The success of decentralization will depend a great deal on the capacity of African states to identify and address the needs of various targets groups, to mobilize stakeholders in decision making and ensuring accountability of decision makers. Women represent more than 50% of the population and there is already a large consensus on the need to ensure that they are more represented in the decision making process As M. Kemal Dervis, UNDP Administrator, on the Occasion of 2006 International Women's Day put it Gender s equality and women s empower as set out in the internationally agreed Millenium Development Goals is therefore crucial to development. 1. Many countries such as Rwanda, South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique and Tanzania have more than 30% women in national parliament and several countries are increasing women s representation in political decision making process. Despite the commitment expressed by government and donors and the growing interests of women to take part in the local governance process, women s participation in decision making process within local governments remains low. In this session dedicated to women leadership in decentralization, many questions merit our attention. I will be sharing with you based on UNDP work and observations on three issues: Has the implementation of decentralization promote increased representation of women in governance body and how and what are the issues that need to be discussed? What impact women s participation has on decentralized governance? What are the strategies promoted by UNDP to enhance the participation of women leaders in decentralized governance and in wider 1 Statement by Kemal Dervis UNDP Administrator on the Occasion of the international women day 2006. 1
development strategic agenda such as gender equality and women s empowerment, poverty reduction and sustainable environment? UNDP works to support national partners to implement democratic governance practices grounded in human rights, gender equality and anticorruption. Within this framework, UNDP has worked with several countries on decentralization and UNPD is very active and committed in gender and women s participation and leadership in local governments. Through this work, it appears that decentralization raises a lot of expectations for increased participation in decision making by under represented group including women, for improved delivery of services, greater accountability. With regards to increased in participation in leadership, it is important to note that while decentralization allows for transfer of responsibilities to local leaders, it does not translate automatically into an increased participation of women and other under-represented groups in leadership structures. With regards to women specifically, decentralization is an important opportunity to increase women leadership for several reasons: 1. Local leadership is viewed as relatively easier by women as women are usually very active in their household and in their communities. They have a solid understanding of local issues and have been one way or the other involved in helping address them. The geographic proximity also makes it easy to balance with other responsibilities 2. Local leadership is seen also as practical way to help local communities meeting immediate needs that women and their families face on a daily basis 3. Local politics are perceived as being less complex than national politics and in general there is an understanding that local leadership is training ground for national leadership. In addition, local elections are also less expensive, less confrontational and aggressive than national elections. 4. Women are involved in social or grassroot development activities. These activities build their confidence in the capacity to address local issues. They have informal or semi-formal networks at the local level. 5. Local leaders in place are usually known in the community. This reduces the power distance between women and local governance structures. They are less intimidated as a result. 2
Despite these factors, women are still under represented especially in the higher decision making body. They represent less than 15% percent of Mayors in Africa. In Cameroon, women represent 6% of Mayors and represent 13% of municipal councillors. Several factors are continuing to hamper the promotion of women leadership in local governance. Experiences from many African countries including Benin, Uganda, Mauritania, Cameroon reveal that the diversity of factors that are still hampering women s leadership in political affairs and in local government. Among them, it is worth mentioning the following 1. Societal barriers and norms about gender and women s leadership 2. Inadequacies in electoral systems 3. Limited political skills and assets among women candidates and in some case limited education 4. Lack of support or interests of political parties for women s leadership, limited participation of women in political parties. 5. Weak national systems that does not promote accountability to gender equality and representation of under-represented This list of challenges shows us that there remains significant work to be done to ensure that the opportunity of increased representation of women in local leadership positions translate into a critical number of women being elected for local governments. Even though quantitative representation is low, it is still worth assessing the impact of women s leadership on local governance. The issue here is one of qualitative contribution to local governance. Women s leadership represents an opportunity to enrich decision making through representation of a target population in the decision process and through greater diversity in leadership style, approaches and visions and experience. The presence of women in local government allow them to voice their opinions making it easier for local government to enlarge their vision. This helps in shaping the collective mind around critical issues and this is important for effective governance to influence future action. Women are well connected to grassroots level and through their participation, they work on promoting local to local dialogue between community organizations and local governments. Another advantage of women s leadership in local governments is that they often use their leadership to help mobilize support for community development projects that address the practical needs of local populations and especially under-privileged groups. For example, the association of women 3
mayors of Madagascar led an initiative to enhance youth employment. Women through their collaborative leadership style has a strong capacity to reach out to wider audience and to bring about best practices and innovations in local governance. This helps in shaping the collective mind around critical issues and this is important for effective governance to influence future action. In addition, women s participation in local governance has a snow ball effect on encouraging more women to take the challenge of leadership. The presence of women s leaders in local government brings more acceptance and confidence in women s as local leaders and national leaders. They serve as role models also for women and other community leaders. In addition, the presence of women s leaders make local government more accessible to local women as these women can identify more with local governments than before. Women s access to leadership positions also encourages other underrepresented groups to dare participate in local leadership structure. Recently, there has been an increased interest of youth in participating in political process and political leadership. In addition, women s leadership encourages women to participate especially when women see women leaders as actively promoting their interests. Despite continuous rise in quality and quantitative representation of women in local governments, the influence of women on local governments is limited. While women are able to voice their views at the decision making forum, they are not yet fully effective at influence and catalyse gender sensitive policy or resource allocations or help to significantly improve service delivery decisions. Several factors limit the capacity of women to effectively influence local governance. These include but are not limited to: Social barriers that lead to resistance to women exercising their leadership once elected. Limited political experience among women The weak political capital due to limited integration in formal and informal political networks The marginal numeric representation in local governing body Inadequacy between resources and responsibility at local level To respond to these challenges, UNDP support national governments in working with all stakeholders individual, women, men, community, civil society, local governments and parliaments to promote women s leadership in governance overall including decentralized governance. The strategies that are promoted by UNDP include the following: 4
1. Encourage gender sensitive transformational leadership among men and women leaders and across the society; UNDP will intensify campaigns to challenge societal attitudes and culture norms that are in barriers to women s leadership in politics. For example in Democratic Republic of Congo, UNDP worked with UNIFEM to boost women s participation. As a result 60% of voters were women. It will also facilitate connections between women s local leaders and their constituencies on key strategic development issues to better position women s leaders. In Georgia, UNDP facilitated the set up of supported the creation of a national Gender Equality Council within the parliament. The objective is to encourage parliamentarians to take actions to promote women s leadership and protect women s rights to participate in politics 2. Continue to promote quotas where relevant and other forms of legal instruments that provide a conducive environment for women s participation in political decisions. As an illustration, in Mauritania, UNDP works with other UN agencies to put in place a law on quota of 20% women in local government. This quota combined with capacity building and practical support for women s candidates result in increase in women s representation. Women percentage among municipal councilors went from 3% to 30%. 4 women mayors were elected compared to compared to 1 mayor before over 216 mayors. 3. Enhance women s capacity to participate in politics and influence decision making process. In Kenya, UNDP in collaboration with other agencies work to strengthen capacity of women. Capacity building targets both candidates and elected official. It includes training, assistance to networking. Training is provided in leadership, advocacy, campaign management, communication with media, development and gender issues, networking and information technology. In Cameroon, less than 20% of candidates for 2007 elections were women. UNIFEM through the network on More Women in Politics works with national authorities to training 400 women candidates from several political parties for the July 2007 elections. In Mali, UNDP conducted training of women councilors on human rights based approach and gender 5
equity in order to better equip them in move forward the gender equity agenda 4. Developing the social and political capital is key for increasing women s representation and influence in local governance,. In Cameroon, UNIFEM helps strengthen promote a network More Women in Politics by linking it to key players in the country and abroad. In Kenya, UN systems partners with the League of Kenya Women Voters and the association of women s lawyers thus promoting networking among women. 5. Promoting global learning, exchange and networking on women in politics. UNDP in partnership with other organizations put in place the virtual platform IKnow Politics. UNDP encourages country to country exchange for example UNDP facilitated exchange between women s legislator of Mauritania and Morocco on how to promote women s representation. Women s political leaders of Sri Lanka undertook with UNDP s support an exchange visit to their South Africa counterpart to help strengthen women s participation and influence in politics in Sri Lanka. 6. UNDP will further promote the integration of gender and women in the design and reform of electoral systems including improving electoral financing. In Cameroon, the government with the support of UNDP worked on the computerization of voters list. Computerization will lay the foundation for the production of gender disaggregated data on elections, strategic information for monitoring and analyzing women leadership in the political process. 7. It is important to strengthen gender perspective within political parties to enhance chances of women to be nominated as candidates and positioned at a high level. In Turkey for example, UNDP assisted provincial representation of political parties in setting up Women Support Unit. 8. Promote effective decentralization strategies with proper funding and management in order enable local government to deliver appropriate gender responsive solutions for local populations. UNDP supports worked in several countries on decentralization processes and strategies. 9. Promoting efforts aimed at ending violence against women in general and in particular to women candidate. It is important in this regard to mention the important work done with the support of UNIFEM with 6
the Education Centre for Women in Democracy in Kenya. A Gender Violence Rapid Response Unit was put in place for 2007 election to assist women candidates who were target of attacks because of their candidatures. Significant work need to be done to strengthen police sensitivity to the issue. Gender equity and women s empowerment are part of the MDG at the same time, women are an important resource that should be leveraged for the achievement of MDG in Africa. It is therefore encouraging to see women s leadership in African local governments on the rise. We are all well aware that the presence of women in decentralized governance is too limited compared the potential of women and the requisites for sustainable human development. UNDP will continue to work with all key stakeholders included women leaders to accelerate this process of integration of women in decision systems with local government. The task before us is huge but looking at the advancement in women s representation in local government and their roles despite major challenges, we can say that there is hope. Indeed, we are convinced that through our combined investments in women leadership, women will be truly positioned and equipped to influence local governance and to contribute to accelerating the development of Africa. I thank you for your kind attention 7