Focus on gender equality

Johannesburg - Former undersecretary-general of UN Women and deputy president Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka believes that more accountability should be placed on the roles and responsibilities of men, and that they should be held more liable for realising gender equality in Africa.

During a keynote speech delivered at the recent Standard Bank Top Women’s Conference Dr MlamboNgcuka said gender inequality is a man’s problem, and women should not be held accountable for closing the gap.

“The divide in working environments can be attributed to policy makers who are largely men, and that is where the change should begin. We ought to be moving towards a situation where there are more men taking an extensive interest in gender equality,” she added.

She explained that South Africa has established itself as a front run- ner on the continent with respect to advancing the rights, roles and contributions of women to society.

“Preceded by the fearlessness of the women who fought against apartheid, South Africa cemented its position globally after the 1995 Beijing Conference, where for the first time 105 countries met and deliberated on gender equality. It was here that world governments recognised women’s rights as human rights, and raised the need for women’s representation and participation in decision-making,” Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka said.

She recalled how the South African leadership at the time set targets and commitments to expand the involvement of women in decision-making bodies, and to prevent public institutions from making decisions about women without any women present. She noted that since then South Africa has made good, albeit not enough progress towards closing the national gender parity gap, with Statistics SA recording higher levels of literacy among women, and improved earnings for women over the 25 year period since the Beijing Conference. She however admitted that men still dominate decision-making bodies, and that more needs to be done to increase women’s involvement in the upper echelons of the public and private sectors.

Research conducted by the World Economic Forum recently indicated that it may take 98 years to close the gender parity gap in subSaharan Africa, and more than 130 years globally.

Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka believes that international organisations such as UN Women play an important role in accelerating women’s empowerment and achieving gender equality in Africa. She noted that these bodies can speed development and adoption of novel legislation, tack- le discriminatory laws and enshrine the rights of women at national level. She feels that international organisations should also partner with like-minded stakeholders with a vested interest in advancing women’s contributions, to pool resources and amplify the sharing of knowledge, networks and opportunities for women.

Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka said the partnership between UN Women, Standard Bank and Topco Media to host this year’s Top Women Conference is a great example of this.

“They have created a platform where vested players can align, share, recognise and celebrate contributions of leading women in Africa. Now we must extend this collaboration to organisations that include Girls Who Code, Bright Pink, Days for Girls and the Malala Fund, who are just a few other examples of stakeholders that prioritise gender equality,” she said.