The Zambia National Women’s Lobby (ZNWL) has appealed to President Hakainde Hichilema to prioritise the appointment of more women to Cabinet, increasing their numbers from last year’s list of five to a higher percentage.
ZNWL Executive Director Golden Nachibinga said that his organisation was confident that, now that the New Dawn Government had been given another mandate, it would do better to secure more women and appoint them to Cabinet compared to last year, when Cabinet had only five women, including the Vice-President.
Mr Nachibinga said in an interview that with the past record of five women in the last Cabinet, the ZNWL wanted to see an increase in the number of women in Cabinet to ensure a balanced government that recognises gender balance in a democratic society like Zambia.
“We, as the Zambia National Women’s Lobby, feel that for Zambia to achieve gender equality, the inclusion of women in government departments plays an important role in advancing the country’s national development and good governance in all areas,” Mr Nachibinga said.
Mr Nachibinga said that it was also paramount that the government take positive steps towards gender policy implementation and ensure increased awareness of gender equality and budget allocation towards gender equality programmes.
“We feel that once the gender policy is implemented, the country will not experience the problem of low numbers of women participating in national events like the just-ended general elections, which saw few women being appointed at councillor level because of gaps in the implementation of the gender equality policy that supports women’s affairs in the running of government,” Mr Nachibinga said.
Mr Nachibinga stressed that at councillor level, the just-ended general elections produced a good number of councillors, which would still be low, though it would be represented in the proportional representation seats.
Mr Nachibinga pointed out that the development of proportional representation seats was a good step for the country, adding that having those would help the country achieve above 30 percent women representation come the next general elections.
He said that women stakeholders in the country also felt that for Zambia to perform well positively in the affairs of women, the creation of a Ministry of Gender, and not just a gender division, should be fully considered for the country to manage the affairs of women well.
