By CHATULA KAMPO and REBECCA MUSHOTA-
THE Zambia Union of Financial Institutions and Allied Workers (ZUFIAW) has called on the private sector to help Government empower women for the country to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.
ZUFIAW president Akin Mweemba in an interview said there was need for the private sector to empower women with funds and skills in the communities they operated from.
Mr Mweemba said the current empowerment funds and skills training by Government were not enough to cater for vulnerable women in the country.
He said for Zambia to attain the MDG on women empowerment, the private sector should come on board and help women become main drivers of economic development.
“Women are very important in the development of the nation. It is everyone’s responsibility to empower women with funds and skills training,” he said.
He commended Government on the women empowerment programmes undertaken by the Ministry of Community Development Mother and Child Health and the Ministry of Gender.
And the Zambia Land Alliance (ZLA) has praised President Michael Sata for directing the Ministry of Lands and the Ministry of Gender to ensure that women had access to land for economic development.
In a statement released on Monday, ZLA chairperson Ceasar Katebe said the directive, if implemented, would see the economic status of many women in Zambia change.
Mr Katebe said despite having a system in place that stated that 30 per cent of land available should be given to women and the rest distributed between men and women, research had shown that women in Zambia continued to be disadvantaged when it came to accessing land.
“There is need to put in a monitoring system that will ensure that 30 per cent actually does go to women,” Mr Katebe said.
He said one of the best ways of tackling poverty in Zambia was by ensuring that women in rural areas had access to adequate resources, including land.