AWD Report 2020
1.2.2. Policy and Institutional Reforms During the Decade, all countries undertook policy and institutional reforms dedicated to increasing women’s representation. For example, all countries have national gender policies that include women’s participation in decision-making as a strategic objective. Cameroon and Congo Republic have created dedicated national action plans. In 2016, with the support of UNDP, Congo Republic established a dedicated national action plan (2017–2021) to promote female political leadership, with a budget of CFAF 660 million (US$1,151,020).765 In addition, Cameroon’s revised 2018 National Action Plan, in partnership with UN Women, includes specific objectives to increase the number of women in elective positions.766 Cameroon has also created a specific training manual for women, which was updated in 2018.767
Figure 10 Central Africa: Percentage of Women MPs (% of members of parliament, 2020)
Countries have undertaken innovative institutional reforms. With a view to quickly identifying talented female candidates, Central African Republic has created a national database of “potential” women leaders.768 Meanwhile, to monitor its own progress, Cameroon uses an annual gender-ranking tool.769 To increase women’s access
Burundi 38.21%
Cameroon 33.89%
Equatorial Guinea 21.00%
to decision-making positions, many countries have implemented capacity-building and training sessions. Cameroon has reported that it has several political coaching centres dedicated to developing skills and delivering political training for women.770 In 2019, Central
Chad 15.43%
Gabon 14.79%
São Tomé and Príncipe 14.55%
African Republic reported that a budget line had been dedicated to the National Assembly for the use of the Forum of Women Parliamentarians of Central African Republic.771 Meanwhile, in 2018, DR Congo established a standing committee on gender, women
DR Congo 12.80%
Congo Republic 11.26%
Central African Republic 8.57%
and family affairs in the National Assembly.772 Under the 2015 Constitution, Congo Republic established the Women’s Advisory Council, which is responsible for monitoring and issuing advice to the government concerning women’s promotion and participation in the
Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union.
country’s development.773
1.3. Challenges and Gaps From the review, it can be seen that Central African countries made progress over the AWD period. However, the review also revealed common challenges as well as remaining gaps. First, while some countries have made progress in terms of increasing the percentage of women in decision-making functions, overall the number of women has remained low. One potential gap maybe the existence (or lack) of a quota system. Primarily, not all countries have legislated quotas. Second, quotas do not exist across all levels of governance. For instance, DR Congo and Equatorial Guinea do not have any formal established quotas.774 While other countries do have quotas in place, they differ in strength and application. Congo Republic, which uses candidate quotas, has identified potential barriers to increasing the number of women, one reason being that the quota system used relates to applications and not to the results of elections.775 This is insufficient to overcome the barriers to women’s participation. While women maybe present within the political party, the lack of sanctions or supportive measures with regard to reaching 30% overall means that women do not rise up in the party to leadership level.776 While women may not be completely absent in political parties, few are given positions of responsibility.777 This remains a challenge to women’s effective participation; it also demonstrates that the quality of positions matters more than the simple number of positions occupied by women. Additionally the presence of conflicting laws means that quotas may not be followed by political parties. While the 2015 Parity Law in DR Congo requires parity – that is, 50:50 representation – the 2017 Electoral Law requires political parties only “to take into account gender.”778 Additionally the non-representation of women does not disqualify electoral lists.779 As such, women’s representation, especially in public and political life, remains low despite the adoption of the Parity Act.780 The lack of sanctions in place for political parties concerning non-compliance also represents a gap.
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