 Okay, good morning and I'm Sablongi Lainal from Bahadur University. My presentation focus on beyond the numbers, women's inclusion in political process in Ethiopia. So, this presentation will try to address the following major concerns. The first one is I'll try to present about brief overview of Ethiopian women's representation in political leadership. I'll just try to highlight the imperial and post-imperial region experiences. And then I will raise some arguments of gender and political representation and which one really holds water in Ethiopia and by whom. This presentation will also try to capture the emerging challenges of women in political leadership in Ethiopian context. And I have also a few remarks on what to do to transform women's political leadership from symbolic or descriptive representation to a very substantive and influential representation. So when we see our experience of women political representation in Ethiopia, we can boldly categorize into two the imperial region and the post-imperial region. So when we see the imperial region, even though the political culture was highly dominated by the patriarchal concept, there were very powerful queens and wives of kingdoms. We can name Cune Sheva, who was linked with Solomon Dynasty. We have Prince Yodit of the founder of Zagway Dynasty in Ethiopia, Cune Leni Impressment of Impress Aitu, who conserved in paramilitary during the Italian invasion. So we had this substantive role in their leadership during the imperial era, even though the overall culture was dominated patriarically. But when we come to the post-imperial region, there is confusion of role in women's political representation. Even though there are women who played undeniable role, bring the social women of the popular revolution in the 1960s and 70s. We had women who have played the role in the Workers' Party of Ethiopia in the Dark Region. There were lots of, I mean, so many associations and women committees, starting from the very beginning of early 1980s. Women played a great role in the armed groups of Liberation Frontists in different groups. Though their role was not such acknowledged and well documented, we can see their role was undeniable during the post-imperial regime and during the transitional period of the Ethiopian governmental systems. But when we see the post-1991 era, women participation in the state politics has been increasing in pace. In 2015, we can see that 328.8% of seats of the House of People representation is taken by women. So we can see that, I mean, at least in number of representation, women's participation is increasing in the country. And we can see the Prime Minister Abhisar administration, the current administration, as another historic move in the women's role in the political participation in Ethiopia. So after the reform and the coming of the new Prime Minister Abhi Ahmed, we can see that half of the Abhisar new cabinet is made up of women. And the president, the Ethiopian president, now it's a woman, the head of the Supreme Court is a woman, and the head of the Electoral Commission, Batukami Degasar is a woman. So women are starting holding a key positions, like even the Minister of Education, Trade, Transport, Minister of Peace, even the Defense, the Minister of Defense was a woman. So we can see the large increase of women's representation in the executive branches. And the change is very remarkable. It was 10% of, 10%, I mean, before 2017. So we can see a move from 10% to 47.6% in 2019. And this change brought Ethiopia into one of the top three African countries by putting women in a ministerial position next to Rwanda and South Africa. So where is the swinging, where is the dwelling up, is despite these recent political strides, women in Ethiopia face systemic inequality, still Ethiopia is ranked one of the least countries with various gender equality indexes. We were in 121 out of 160 countries in various gender inequality measures. And the claim that women are half the sky is more than a glitch. And when it comes to the real political representation, and when we see the rendering of true women legacy, so it's not yet clear how the improved representation of women in the federal government really affect the status of over 50 million women in ethnicity in Ethiopia. So one of the, in my opinion, one of the challenge is the argument which are widely circulated in Ethiopia about gender representation affected the role of women in their leadership. So I have brought a few argument and I'll try to catch up which argument is really accepted by who my second area of presentation. So as we see symbolic arguments argues that representation of women's help us to bring more role models so that they can attract other women to leadership arena. The critical mass arguments in state argues that women they can achieve solidarity of purpose so that they can represent the other women's interest. So these arguments are widely circulating among Ethiopian civilians, associations, you can hear them in the families in the schools why women should be represented in the political leadership system. When we ask this question, the majority of the civilians may raise this argument the symbolic representation and critical mass representation. But for me to the other argument is, for example, just the argument, the democracy argument is which claims that women account for approximately half of the population so they have the right to be represented. The equal representation of women in the enhanced democracy democratization of governance is these arguments are usually the views of the scholars the scholars and partly shared by the political leaders in Ethiopia. So they are not as just both by the major the mass the civilians in the state they are mainly circulated within the scholastic view of Ethiopian professionals. And the race argument is the experience argument the interest arguments women experience are different from men. So they do politics and business differently. The interest arguments they have different interests from that of men so they need to be articulated differently. These arguments are very vivid concepts in our context and they are perceived as radical feminist view which Ethiopia couldn't afford it for now. So even these arguments are considered as a trait for the well established conservative society. So one of the the concerns we have as a professional interested in the area of gender and political representation is how we can coin the arguments of gender representation in the Ethiopian context. And we do have different other concerns regarding women politics. I mean the bouncing concerns which were holding throughout the country's history and the current context of change is even though women politicians are not elected they are not elected positions. They are just there to make quota and the government is bringing women into the leadership position to get more attention from the global influencing actors. So this symbolic gesture hijacks women's question I mean into the party needs. So there is this fear in the society that women are empowered and they are expected to be more led to the political their political party needs. And they are not really representing the concerns of the majority women and the girls. So we can we can bring here an example currently there are 21 kidnapped university students mainly they are women I mean girls. And we can see we can see that women ministry and at ministry level at top management level they didn't show up for strength or solidarity to speak up on this on the behalf of these women I mean these girls. So they were highly criticized for they are just in that position for the sake of the party needs for symbolic gesture. They are not just influencing the government even to rescue girls who are kidnapped recently. There are also other emerging concerns currently we are in a state of crisis ethnic centered crisis. So the role of women in the leadership to bring peace and security in the country is not as such visible. And so even though the Abighi administration brought so remarkable changes in bringing women into the top management level the from the original this high-spirited welcoming and embarrassing a point I mean acceptance is not here to bring this type. So it's more more likely replaced by resentment and concerns about the state fragility. Even the prime minister it's I mean himself is accused as he's not in money enough to maintain low order low end order in the nation. And he is relied for surrounding himself by powerless women who are risking the country peace and security. So what to do what can we do we do have this opportunity of bringing more women to the political leadership but we have also these concerns of more descriptive representations symbolic gesture and they are not as such visible in bringing change in the country current crisis and in the overall development. So one thing which is obviously we need to work hard to move from this descriptive representation we need to acknowledge that women are in the very descriptive representation and then to move to substantive representation. That's we need to reshape my argument here is we need to reshape what we are circulating our argument is regarding the need of gender and representation in the political arena. We need to reshape the our scholastic argument is regarding gender and representation to the mass. And even those women who are represented in the political system they need to question themselves how they are building movements and acting on the collective responsibility beyond their personal ladder climbing and they are now in power. So what does this ascension to power mean for other women? They need to ask and reflect on these major questions. The other one is we need also to raise the capacity gaps. So so far the the most I mean the the the interest is to bring more women into the political leadership but representation of gender should not be limited to the political leadership arena only. We need to bring more women I mean to the media representation we need to reshape the media representation and we need also to talk about gender representation in the area of business corporates and others because women who lack people and economic rights they are not able to exercise their political rights fully and so the other dimensions of gender and representation which are neglected so far by the government should be given full focus of attention. Moreover those women who are getting the opportunity of leading the countries I mean and earning the leadership positions need to prove that they have the capacity to assume that level and they need to make critical decisions. They need to establish strong networks so that they can help each other and the other one is to have a succession plan so that they can put and grooming young women leaders to assume leadership positions in their future as well. The other one is obviously we need to raise the structural barriers still we do have so many discriminatory laws and institutions which limit women's ability to run in office so these things need to be given focus because we are expecting to women to magically address issues of other women or to engage in the other in the countries over all development without capacitating their leadership ability. They are also women leaders often face bias from public criticism intimidation because they just they are just women so addressing structural barriers need to focus from the consulate police so these are what I have about the current move of gender and representation in the political arena of Ethiopia. Thank you for attending this presentation that's it.