 Hello, Sifiso. Hi, Militre, you are in the main room. I think we can start. We are also live streaming on YouTube. Maybe colleagues can find us along the way. Thank you. So do we have a good number to start off because I can't see the participants side? They are seeming to join. We can give them two more minutes, three minutes as they come in because it's exactly 12 on my side. Okay, yeah, you can give two minutes. I'm sorry about the fluctuation. It's a bit unstable on my side, but I want to see how we are going to mitigate that. Okay. Please just let everyone know that we are live streaming this event. Okay. All right. All right, thank you. I think we can go ahead now if it is okay on your side, Sifiso. Yes. Thank you so much, Militre. I think colleagues will join us. Maybe some are having technical difficulties, but we can start. If you can go ahead and introduce the event, Militre. Thank you very much. Good morning to those who are still waking up to this morning. Good afternoon to those on my side who are getting into the afternoon. I doubt that is evening to anybody joining right now, but welcome to this event that marks the International Women's Day and rightfully so. Welcome to this discussion that will take us through understanding the situational analysis of women's political participation in Africa, and especially putting into perspective eight countries within this project by international idea, a special appreciation to the international idea for looking at women's political participation in particular, specifically with the special intention to increase and enhance women's political participation in Africa and of course across the borders. We acknowledge the participation of our honorable members of parliament here. We acknowledge the participation of honorable women politicians in the room, policy strategies, policy advisors, our development partners, and all in the women advocacy space across the continent. That is off really, I would like that as we look into international women's day and our theme this year of hashtag break the bias, break the bias we do acknowledge and recognize that bias, which in essence is discrimination, which in essence is is is what what works against women advancing women's participation, not only politically, but across economically, social and cultural spectrum the bias is real. And we, as we go through this day this event please ask ourselves, what biases are we stepping on. I want to start off by invoking spirits of women leaders and women political leaders, political mobilizers, who have guided us our participants from Botswana, you know that when we speak often to Bohang Russia 1882 1979 we know the contribution that she had in opening the space for women's leadership. My colleagues comrades from Eswatini, I am saluting the spirits of Labosibene in Lulee, Swaziland's Queen Mother, we know between 1858-1925, our colleagues from Zimbabwe always in awe of Nahendanya Kasikana, but of course I was thinking of our colleague Joyce Mujuru and the boldness, the courage of being a woman combat and leading women into leadership when it comes to military confrontation, which is good and opens up the spaces for leadership. Our colleagues from Tanzania, Bititi, Mohammed, of course we will always remember Bititi and the role she played in Tanzania's liberation and setting up the groundwork for women's political participation in the political process for liberation. Our colleagues from the DRC, we salute Donna Beatriz Kumpavitan Zimbabwe 1684-1706, amazing woman contributing to women's participation in leadership in different spheres that was quite instrumental in putting together the DRC women's discourse. Our colleagues from Koduwa Ivory Coast, I salute you and remember the march of the Grand Basin of 1949, extremely critical in marking women's strong political participation, strong voice on women's participation in political processes that were extremely important for all of us. And finally, our colleagues from Senegal, we will always salute Aline Sitoediata and the role that she played with the women in the rice farms, mobilizing women to rise up against the tax. We will always remember the spirits of Mariamma Bah and the literature leadership that she gave Pan-African feminists from Senegal. Now the numbers are many, the names are many, sometimes history does not do justice to the women who led our discourse on women's political participation in Africa. And it is our role as women's rights advocates within the WPP to remember and invoke the spirits and the names of women that we acknowledge. And so today, beloved in this space that we want to quickly discuss the status of women's political, the situational analysis of women's political participation in Africa as hosted by international idea. I urge that we put our thoughts together as we talk welcoming our panelists and our guests as we discuss these issues that are extremely important to us, let us reflect on those who went ahead of us, those on whose shoulders we stand. We open this discussion and please remember that this event is live streamed in appreciation with international idea and the teams that are working together to put together this event. May I now welcome, in our agenda, we have Dr. Roba Sharamo, the International Idea Regional Director. I am informed that Dr. Roba Sharamo, who is the Regional Director for African West Asia, a very experienced leader there with over 23 years of experience in international peace and security, conflict resolution, mediation, negotiation and diplomacy. I am informed that Dr. Roba might not be in the room and so therefore stepping in for Dr. Roba is Sifiso Dube, the Program Officer for the Women in Political Participation Project based in Nairobi, Kenya, and her focus areas are contributing to the design planning and implementation of project activities coordinating the WPP consortium. Sifiso is our host today so I welcome you Sifiso to come in with our welcome remarks from International Idea as we take on the day. Welcome Sifiso. Thank you very much Mildred for those opening remarks, Pan-African opening remarks and welcoming us to this session. I hope everyone can hear me. Greetings from International Idea colleagues, friends, sisters, we're gathered here today to mark yet another celebration of International Women's Day, but this particular celebration really we want to give an overview of what is the situation around women's political participation in Africa. With our researchers who are panelists in this forum, we just wanted to thank you as International Idea of taking your time to be with us today so that we hear what is the situation around women's political participation in the African continent. On behalf of International Idea and apologies, sincere apologies from my regional director Dr. Roba for not making it joining us this afternoon or this morning depending on where you are. I would like to thank you everyone and just to say the Women in Political Participation Project is a Pan-African project currently piloted in eight countries. Whereby we are contributing to enhancing women's political participation in Africa through production of knowledge products, through capacity building and training, including with journalists, including with media, including with parliamentarians and political parties as well as election management bodies. This project, colleagues and friends, is part of our political participation and representation pillar at International Idea, but it does touch to other pillars such as constitutional building and elections assistance. Of course, we are currently gathered here to see how women are faring on the ground in terms of political participation. Colleagues this afternoon, I would like to say as International Idea, we are working towards an Africa whereby women will celebrate their power in the political space through equal participation, equal opportunities and a framework in terms of electoral system that allows them to compete at a level filled together with their male colleagues. Colleagues, it is not easy in many countries for women to participate in politics, but we do hope that as International Idea, together with the consortium of the WPP, we call it WPP Women in Political Participation, we will be able to contribute to a better Africa and Africa where we celebrate women who are at 50% in terms of representation. Our consortium is made up of gender links currently working in aspects in South Africa, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Botswana. We have a consortium member called Padare who are concentrating on male engagement. We know that many men are agents or they are gatekeepers around the issue of women's political participation. We have them working in Zimbabwe mainly, but also working in Kenya around women's political participation aspects. We have our colleagues from Femnet, a Pan-African women's organization working towards really exciting us around working with parliamentarians, women's rights organization in the issue of women political participation. We have our consortium member Fawwe, which is a forum for female educationalists across Africa, who piloted the issue around the academicization on women in political participation. We have also IFAN, the gender lab located in Senegal, where they are working in three countries, mainly Francophone countries, DRC, Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal, in terms of also the interventions around this project. Colleagues, we would like to thank the consortium members who are here present, including Wilsa as well, that have launched in December last year a Pan-African model gendered electoral law on elections. So we see that there are many products and we have also a key product, that knowledge product that was produced by our consortium member genderlings, which is the Pan-African gender parameter on women's political participation. This instrument has been used by many organizations in terms of highlighting the issues or the status of women in politics. Today, as we look at the situation analysis, we look at it as a complementary knowledge product in terms of what we have already produced at both country level and regional level in terms of the project. But as we move forward, I do not want to dwell on much of the items, but we do have our website, WPP.net.Africa, where you can see what the whole project is about. And I'm sure that my colleagues, the researchers will also provide, tell us the complementary aspects on what the project is doing. We once again thank you all for availing yourselves today to be with us as we give preliminary findings of the regional situation analysis on women's political participation. I thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Sifiso. Thank you for capturing it as we actually try to understand this powerful consortium coming in for women's political participation. All the organizations working together in this consortium to ensure that women's political participation in Africa is sustained, it's meaningful, and it is transformative. I hear you, Sifiso, when we say that women, when women come to celebrate their political gains, something has shifted in women's leadership. And participants today, we have a powerful panel, quite a powerful panel of speakers who will come in and I will introduce them as they come. But as we go in there, may I now introduce and call on Ms. Sarah Solomon, the Gender Advisor, Embassy of Sweden in Addis Ababa, our partners in this WPP program. Welcome, Ms. Sarah Solomon. Miltred, I think Sarah is having difficulties in joining, but our director has now joined us. Maybe you can give him a bit of time as well. Dr. Roba. Okay. Dr. Roba has come in. That is wonderful to have Dr. Roba. So while Dr. Roba comes in, let me just remind you again that this event is live streamed. And of course, in the spirit of International Women's Day, we will continue engaging on the social media spaces, use the hashtag, break the barriers. Please tag the organizations within, and of course, International Idea, who are our hosts today. So as Dr. Roba has come in, we are glad that he has been able to make it from a very busy schedule. May I quickly introduce him. Again, Dr. Roba is the Regional Director for Africa and West Asia. Dr. Roba Sharamo has over 23 years of experience in international peace and security, conflict resolution, mediation, negotiation, and diplomacy, where he worked in senior management positions with the United Nations Development Program in Kenya, Government of Kenya, non-governmental organizations, and a leading think tank Institute for Security Studies in Addis Ababa, Nairobi, amongst others. So we are grateful that Dr. Roba found some time to come in as International Idea Regional Director to address us. You are welcome, Dr. Roba. And colleagues and participants, just reminding you that if you have comments, questions, suggestions, as we go ahead with our discussion today, please put them into the chat box and we will be able to try and capture them as well. Dr. Roba? Dr. Roba is having connection difficulties. I think we can move to the main speaker. Okay. Thank you very much for keeping us in check on that one. So we are always having issues and problems with our technology connections and everything, but that does not stop us as advocates of women's political participation from moving forward. We will keep moving forward. Colleagues, comrades, and partners in women's political participation, we are greatly honored to have our keynote speaker come from one of the top most bodies across this continent and the ones that we admire and we acknowledge and honor. Our keynote speaker today is Ambassador Fatumanda Giza. Fatumanda Giza is our keynote speaker and has dedicated over 27 years of her career, work experience in public service in Rwanda, in the EACC and continentally. She has served in senior positions in government, in civil society, as well as multilateral organizations in areas related to women advancement and gender equality, unity and reconciliation, diplomacy, good governance and regional integration. Colleagues, I just need you to understand that our Honorable Fatumanda Giza from the East Africa Legislative Assembly is a powerhouse on her own with a profile that is too long for me to even capture now. But we are appreciative that you're here, Honorable Fatuma, and we thank you for coming in to address us in this symposium. You're welcome, Honorable Fatuma. Hello. Hello, we can hear you, Honorable Fatuma, Karibusana, you're welcome. Thank you so much, Madam Moderator, my sister, Mildred Giza, and I also want to acknowledge the presence of powerful women from Africa who are attending this virtual session, but also our distinguished panel of speakers including the regional director of Edea, distinguished ladies and gentlemen. I'm delighted to be part of this webinar conversation on situational analysis on women's political participation in Africa, break the bias towards women in political decision making. As part of the celebration of the International Women's Day 2022, allow me to extend my sincere appreciation to International Edea for organizing this important and timely event and for inviting me to make a keynote address. Special thanks go to my sister, Sifiso Dube, WPP program officer for sharing this important initiative. As we celebrate International Women's Day, I'd like to pay tribute to women everywhere for their struggles, financial sacrifices and resilience in advancing women's rights and striving for a more gender equal society. I also salute men including our distinguished panel of speakers for supporting the cause of gender equality and women in political decision making. Distinguished participants, women's rights are human rights, and women's leadership unleashes their potential and talents. The African Union Agenda 2063 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals in Partitula Goal 5 on gender equality can never be attained if over 50% of the world population who are women is underrepresented on the negotiating table. Women's political participation is fundamental to strengthening justice, equality, democracy and sustainable development. When women are equally represented in political decision making, they make choices that support their communities, well-being and equality in access and control over opportunities. Increased presence and visibility of female politicians raises career aspiration of young girls and contributes to changing societal attitudes and expectations, having way for greater gender equality for current and future generations. Distinguished delegates, 74 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and 27 years after the Beijing Declaration and platform for action that are enshrined in the African Charter on human and people's rights on the rights of women in Africa, the Maputo Protocol, there is tremendous progress on women's rights worth celebrating. In every region, countries have increased women's political participation by passing laws and reforming constitutions, building coalitions, capacity building for women leaders and supporting women movement and voters. However, the agenda is still unfinished, especially in relation to women's civil and political rights. A survey on women's participation in politics in 34 African countries by an organization called Afrobarometer knows that while countries like Iwanda have 61% of women parliamentarians and a cabinet of 52% and also South Africa having over 43% of female parliamentarians and a cabinet of 50% women, which is a high representation in terms of parliament and also cabinet, some of the world's worst performers are also on the continent. For example, women have only 6.7% hold 6.7% of seats in the parliament of Nigeria and 8.4% in Benin. There is also substantial variation across Africa. Distinguished participants have been requested to address you on what international women they means for women in political decision making. It is also an opportunity to share my perspectives partly based on my own experience working at home but also regionally. At the outset allow me to recall the origin of this important day for women that we are commemorating. As you are aware, as early as in 1980, 15,000 women took to the streets in New York to protest against terrible working conditions and exploitation and called for shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. This women's action led to the first ever celebration of National Women's Day by the Socialist Party of America in 1909 to honor the strikers. In the following year, the Socialist International voted for the creation of Women's Day to advocate for suffrage, leading to the first celebration of International Women's Day in 1911 by more than a million people in Europe. It was this International Women's Day movement which culminated in the adoption of the International Women's Day by the United Nations on 8th March, 1975. From this history we learn that International Women's Day is about the quest for gender equality and non-discrimination against women and girls, including the respects for political participation. Informed by that history, the International Women's Day is observed to recognize the achievements of women in social, political, economic and cultural domains. It is a global day to reflect strides so far made and take stock of remaining challenges as well as chart the way forward. International Women's Day provides a platform for mobilization and advocacy in engaging barriers to keep players, including policy and law makers, to promote gender parity as well as tackle barriers that hinder full participation of women in decision making processes in all aspects and at all levels. Just before joining here, I was participating International Women's Day celebration here at the East African Community, representing my parliament. And it was of course an opportunity for me to raise, not only celebrating the many achievements women in this region have attained, but also to raise glaring gaps in the area of decision making. And also issues related to women discrimination, but also to appeal to our countries to make sure that they respect their constitutional obligations. Because, regionally, most of the East African partner states have enshrined the quota system, a minimum of 30% of women representation and principles of gender equality. But of course, although, and that's why you have most of the East African countries having over 30% of women representation in parliament, and around having 61%, and we're also proud that as we speak, we have three speakers in our region who are females. We have some prime ministers, deputy prime ministers, but you also have a female sitting head of state in the United Republic of Tanzania. But also in the Republic of Kenya, we know we have a chief justice, and for the first time we have women in non-traditional roles such as ministers of defense. But nevertheless, the Republic of Kenya, of course, as you're about to be about to go for presidential, parliamentary, and also governorial and other local elections, I would like to take this opportunity to encourage our member state to do its best so that they can shine. And at the end of the day, we have more women coming up in Kenya parliament, women governors, women ministers, women MCAs, but also more important to encourage the Republic of Kenya to operationalize. There's two-third gender rule in their constitution that hasn't been operationalized up to now. In fact, as I speak, some of the civil society organizations in the Republic of Kenya, in particular FEMNAT and Crown Trust, have petitioned the Republic of Kenya on this issue of failure to operationalize the two-third gender rule. So I really want to encourage all the political players in our great country. Kenya has done very well in many areas. They represent us very well at the United Nations Security Council. They are representing us at the community. The president of Kenya is our head of state who is head of the ESC summit. The secretary general is also from Kenya and he's doing good work. There is a lot of good work that Kenya has done and I know this one can also be attended to. So it's my appeal that as we celebrate International Women's Day, that our sister country, the Republic of Kenya, can seize the opportunity really and make great strides in the area of gender equality by increasing the number of women leadership in key political decision-making processes. So I was still talking about the importance of the International Women's Day and that's why I'm raising this issue because it's an opportunity for advocacy. We commend the establishment of policy and legal frameworks for gender equality at global level, African continental level and in a number of countries. At the global level, the UN adopted the 23rd Agenda for Sustainable Women's Goals, a special goal file, which calls for achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls with the central and transformative promise of leaving no one behind. Other legal instruments include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women's Sido, the 1985 Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies, and the Platform for Action in 1993, the United Security Council Resolution UN13-25 and the Beijing Declaration on Platform for Action of 1995. At the African continental level, African countries adopted the African Union Agenda 2063, a special goal 17, on full gender equality in all spheres of life, under which the priority areas for intervention include women and girls empowerment and ending violence and discrimination against women and girls. The African continent also adopted the African Charter on Human and People's Rights and the African Union's Protocol to the Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa. At ESC level, the treaty establishing ESC enshrines provisions of gender equality, gender mainstreaming, and women empowerment. In the same vein, the ESC gender policy of 2008, gender action plan, and several gender equality tools help in operationalization of the treaty provisions with regard to women empowerment and gender mainstreaming. At the national level, a number of countries, including in Africa, signatory to the above mentioned international and regional human and women's human rights. Most of them have also domesticated international legal instruments on women's rights and put in place some mechanisms to address gender inequality and end discrimination against women. Some of these mechanisms include affirmative actions through quota systems to increase women's representation in political participation and decision making. National and regional gender machineries to ensure the promotion of women's rights and systematic gender mainstreaming across the board. Ladies and gentlemen, putting in place enabling policy and legal framework for gender mainstreaming is one thing, effective implementation is another one. This is not however to downplay the importance of policy, legal and institutional frameworks for advancement of women and gender equality. We just need to underscore that when assessing the progress made, we should look beyond the existing mechanisms to ascertain the extent to which it has been implemented. In this respect is obvious that many countries around the world have not yet reached the principle of parity or equality in political participation. Understand that today I will share with us the findings from the regional situation analysis on women's political participation in Africa. We are quite certain that African countries are at very level of achievements, with very few having surpassed 50% while others are still lagging far behind. Allow me to ask this question to the numbers of women and girls in political decision making matter. In my view, I think they matter. Studies show that women's ability to make an impact in male dominated institutions will be limited until they are represented in numbers sufficient enough to have a collective voice. The Beijing platform for action recommended a critical mass of a minimum of 30% of women in decision making for them to have an impact. According to the World Bank estimates 2020 women and girls will present 50.1% of the population sub Saharan Africa and 49.58% worldwide. The participation of women in political decision making and development processes therefore critical for inclusive and sustainable development. However, this goes for looking beyond the numbers. Women and girls are not elected or appointed to political decision making positions for the sake of their numerical strength. They are rather expected to effectively discharge their mandates and positively impact the lives and dignity of the people, including women and girls. Likewise, an enabling police or legal frameworks are meaningful if they are owned and enforced. Political will at the highest level and men's involvement is therefore an imperative. This implies that we should assess our progress as women in political participation against the positive impact. The change that our leadership has made in everyday life of the people we serve, men and women, boys and girls, especially the vulnerable women and girls. Ladies and gentlemen, as we celebrate the International Women's Day 2022, we recognize that in women's leadership and decision making spheres, Africa continues to make commendable strides and change is visible. A good number of African women occupy decision making spaces at international, continental and national levels. From female presidents, vice presidents, prime ministers, speakers, cabinet ministers, legislators, local government leaders and heads of multilateral civil society and corporate organizations. On the other hand, you also need to look ahead towards the said deadline for achieving the UN 2030 SDGs, not only SDG 5 on women and girls informing, but also mainstreaming gender equality across all the 17 goals. In this respect, you must acknowledge that we still lag behind in achieving most of the goals while the clock is ticking. As a matter of fact, 70% of 1.3 billion people living in conditions of poverty are women. Women are predominant in the world's food production, 50% to 80%, but they own less than 10% of the land, and only one in three scientists is a woman. The level of gender inequality in girls' education is still alarming, with girls more likely than boys to never set food in a classroom due to poverty. Conflicts and other forms of social disadvantages. A situation that the COVID-19 pandemic has worsened with regard to sexual and gender-based violence, early pregnancies, child marriages and unrecognized domestic work. It is important to observe that women's vulnerability stems from a number of factors, social, economic and cultural. These are the root causes of historically generated gender depression, which leads to the marginalization and the representation of women and gender inequality, which shapes long-standing discrimination and unconscious bias against women and girls in our society. They include gender division of labor, conformed societal roles based on economic and cultural systems, which considered men as breadwinners and women as secondary or subservient, masculine workplace, cultures, employer-stereotypical attitudes, lack of work-life balance initiatives, among others. At the UN Secretary Hygiene points out, the recruited patriarchy and misogyny have created a unique gender power gap in our economies, our political systems, our corporations, our societies and our culture. And for that reason, gender inequality and discrimination against women and girls are perhaps the most overwhelming injustice across the globe. Distinguished participants, the above discussion demonstrates that much as some progress has been made, the path to gender equality remains steep. That is one of the biggest challenges women in political decision making. We must step up our efforts to approve the negative cultural practices that are among the causes of discrimination against women and girls and break the bias. Gender machineries at national and regional levels should be strengthened strategically and influence policies and practices across the sectors. There is need to enhance leadership capacities through trainings, mentoring and coaching of public and private sector leaders, as well as mobilize sustained political will and commitment at all levels. We must transform the existing patriarchal setting to gender responsive structures and systems without addressing those root causes. Even the best enabling policy and legal instruments, the increased number of women in political leadership will never suffice. The 21st century is the time for women empowerment and gender equality. The time to act is now. As I conclude, I very much look forward to the enriching discussions and to the strong recommendations of this very interesting webinar, who is building a more inclusive and transformed society that is free from gender bias and discrimination. Happy International Women's Day and thank you for your kind attention as Santeni sang. Thank you and I am clapping for you Ambassador Fatuma. Thank you so much for that wealth of information that we really do need on women's political participation. I am appreciate your institutional memory to the journey of women's political participation, not only in the continent but globally. And before I let you go, before I call in the next speaker, I was just wondering Honorable Fatuma, what is it, what are the two, only two biggest deterrents for women's political participation in Africa? What are the two, just two, if you can level it to two, in your view, the biggest deterrent to women's political participation in Africa? What do you think, Honorable Fatuma? Thank you very much, Madam Moderator. The first one for me is gender-based violence because everywhere it's a challenge and if women are not free from bad violence based on gender, you know, they don't even have an enabling environment for participation. The second challenge is, I would say the patriarchal system that are in place, that even when you create conditions for women to participate, but the systems in place continue to hinder their participation. And probably the third one, although you didn't ask me, is again the issue of political commitment because it takes a leader at the highest level, it takes leaders in the legislature to commit and enforce. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Honorable Ambassador Fatuma Ndagi is a very, very insightful point there. GBV, patriarchy, political commitment, the areas that we all in the advocacy for WPP across the continent work in and we are grappling and struggling to go over them so that women's political participation is meaningful. So once again, our participants, we welcome you and we acknowledge and we appreciate. We see that Sarah and Dr. Roba are still experiencing some technical difficulties, but we just want to appreciate again that the project that we are working on on WPP in Africa is funded and supported by the Embassy of Sweden in Addis Ababa, our partners. They really should have been with us and they want to be with us. They're waiting in line, but the technical bit is a bit difficult for them at this moment. I also want to recognize and appreciate the presence of 30 journalists joining us today in this platform who are gathered in Johannesburg as part of the WPP project. We appreciate the work of media in amplifying the visibility for women's political participation in Africa, in our diverse countries. We know that without connecting the dots of women's political participation with visibility, then we fail to amplify our call and our push for women's political participation. So colleagues and comrades now after this powerful, strong opening remarks by Ambassador Fatuma, may I and we will be adjusting the agenda as we go along. Please allow me at this point to bring in the global perspectives on women in political participation. The global perspective of women in political participation as will be presented by our colleague Rubensai Kudavasi Kanundu, the senior advisor on democracy and inclusion at International Idea. Welcome Rubensai. We appreciate, I know we've kept you and you have to run into yet another meeting. So please welcome and give us the global perspectives of women in political participation. Welcome Rubensai. Thank you and greetings Mildred as the moderator and greetings sisters from all parts of the world. I believe even if we are organizing gathered here as the African continent, we have sisters in all parts of the world and International Women's Day is also about the global sisterhood and collaboration and participation. I would like to build on what Honorable Fatuma has outlined in terms of the enabling frameworks and of course some of the challenges that she highlighted on. And in doing that, this is because his international idea is my colleague Spiso who spoke earlier mentioned our theme is break the bias. And as we are looking at that theme, break the bias in the context of women in political participation. I would like to highlight fundamental milestones to some extent, and also the challenges that we see globally, but at the same time, we need to know that what we say global, what we see at a global level is a manifestation of what's happening at the national and regional context. In order to start off, I think at the global level, it is very clear that we have substantive and well established frameworks, whether it's the Beijing declaration or platform for action, whether it's the UN Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. The current and robust SDG 2030, the 2030 agenda, and in particular the inclusion, standalone inclusion of SDG 5 on achieve gender equality and empower women and girls that empower women and girls in all their diversity. So the global frameworks are well established because then even at a sub regional level or continental levels, we have enabling frameworks, even with the African Charter on human and people's rights, and then we have the solemn declaration on gender equality. All those frameworks are in existence, whether it's in the sub regional continents, for instance, and the same applies in other regions across the world. However, the challenge is that the frameworks are there, but the implementation, the gap remains implementation, the implementation commitment. And I would like to tie this up with one of the statements that Honorable Fatuma mentioned about the political will and commitment. She called it commitment, but I'm also political commitment, but I'm adding political will and commitment. Whilst we have the global frameworks that are enabling, we even see that even at a national level, if you look at the analysis that has been done by UN women jointly together with international idea on national constitutions, over 138 national constitutions include provisions on gender equality and women's empowerment. Yet again, what is contained in the legal frameworks, so we must then this highlights the fact that across the world, what we have contained in legal frameworks does not necessarily translate into reality in terms of substantive gains to break the bias to bridge and grip and break the gap between women and men, boys and girls and all their diversity. So constitutional provisions are very enabling as well, and to a certain extent that cascades also to the electoral laws and political party laws, the frameworks, the legal frameworks are very enabling. Yet still, we find if we just zero in on the national assemblies or national parliaments, women across the world, all over the world are still only constituted only 26% of parliamentarians of the world. And the theme break the bias is very timely, because it shows that something is not aligning. And one of the greatest barriers that we are seeing is exactly what honorable Fatuma referred to or alluded to earlier, the issue of patriarchy. And I would like us to really understand as we celebrate International Women's Day, acknowledging, you know, and profiling that women's rights are human rights and women's rights are a democratic imperative and gender equality is an enabler for democracy and development. We need to realize that this is being done in very deeply entrenched patriarchal setups. And patriarchy is essentially a system of male privilege and advantage that promotes male privilege and advantage. And when we look at challenges around women's ability to enter into spaces or positions of power and decision making, the greatest barriers emanate from patriarchal mindsets, patriarchal systems and processes. And this is why we need also to be very alert and realize that patriarchy is essentially a non-monetary resource for men. That is where honorable Fatuma is trying to get her position into leadership or my colleague, Sister Mildred, the moderator, you're trying to enter into a position of power and decision making, and you are contesting or sending against a male candidate already that they are born male. It's an advantage for them. So I call it, we should be very cognizant of the fact that it's essentially a non-monetary resource for men. So by the time we start saying as women we need to mobilize resources to enter into positions of power and decision making, patriarchy has already financed the inroads and the access for men in Africa and generally across the world. As a result, this is why we see a lot of the emerging pandemic, if I can call it that way, of violence against women in politics and it's taking, it's manifesting in different forms and in different spaces. Why is it that? Because violence is being used as a tool to deter women from entering into positions of power and decision making, where decisions that affect their day to day lives are being made. It is used as a weapon to say this is not your space and it's not just a weapon used against the individual woman who might experience it, but it's a weapon against women as a group to say stay away, this is not your place. And it's all stemming or emanating from patriarchy as a system of male privilege and advantage. And this is the status across the world. There is no regime in the world where we are talking about Asia Pacific. We are talking about the Latin America, the Americas, Europe, where violence against women generally and in politics is not an issue. So break to break the bias. That's one of the fundamental issues that needs to be dealt with why violence against women is perpetrated and its intent and purpose is to silence women individually and to silence women as a group. The other part that we really need to highlight, sisters, is the issue of what I'll call the critical minority of at least 30%. I prefer to call it a critical minority because 30% is not even a majority. Women in almost every country, they constitute at least 50% of the population. So the at least 30%, let's change the narrative. It's just essentially a critical minority for women to be in those spaces so that their voice can make a difference. And this ties up with the constant narrative that we see across the world whereby whenever women have to get into positions of power and decision making. There's this narrative about what difference are they making? How competent are they? What's their merit? Yet the same standard and demand is not really expected and extended with regards to male colleagues. This is not in any way I'm not saying and advocating for mediocre performance and also advocating for incompetence. Essentially what I'm highlighting sisters across the world and in our context of the women in political participation program in Africa is that we need also to have the narrative changing. First and foremost, it's a shared responsibility because there's always demands that women must prove that they are capable. Women must prove that they are competent leaders. The burden of proof on women is 150% high, the requirement, yet on men it can even be set at 75% and they will still have it easy to enter into positions of power and decision making at all levels. So across the world the narrative that at least 30% is now seen as it's a token. The narrative even comes out as we are giving women 30%, we are giving women 30%. The narrative of being given 30% we need to see how problematic that is because the assumption is that it's not a democratic imperative or the assumption is that it's not women's right to be in those spaces, but at least we are giving them this 30% and therefore it should be sufficient and women should be content with that. So even the narrative that we have in the world is very problematic and this is why break the bias becomes essential because these are the bias. We see them in the narrative and we speak them and they become a way of life and set mindsets in terms of thinking. This is why we see across the world there's a lot of skepticism with regards to women's leadership and I'm not going to be giving statistics of saying in Parliament, of course I've mentioned the global average, Parliaments are performing well, yes we acknowledge that, but the progress is very slow and uneven. Such is international idea in one of the assessments, the analysis that we did in 2020 in just checking the progress with regards to the participation of women across the world. We are saying that at this rate, and this is also collaborated in the global gender report, it will show for instance just that to achieve gender equality in political empowerment it is estimated that it will take about 145 years just to attain gender parity in politics. We are not even talking about the other areas, we are just focusing in politics as this is our sphere of influence and main area of work. And as it stands in about 81 countries for instance by the 15th of January 2021, there had never been a woman head of state. So if we look at all these illustrative indicators, there's a lot that needs to be done in breaking the barriers. And I would like to wind up by highlighting one of the key institutions that we believe has to be transformed in order to break the barriers. And it serves as a key institute for supporting democracy building. And that is political parties, what happens within political parties. The formation of political parties in mind, we must also remind ourselves that political parties are not some superficial entity out there. So political parties are made up of people, women, men, boys and girls and in all their diversity. So what political parties have in their constitutions, founding documents in their internal rules and procedures is very fundamental in terms of truly breaking the bias towards women's leadership. For instance, one of the areas that we emphasize and give particular focus on an international idea is what I'll call the secret garden for the identification, nomination and selection of candidates. What happens with those internal democracy processes on the identification, nomination and selection of candidates for positions within political parties and for elective positions of power and decision making at all levels remains very problematic. And a lot of barriers and roadblocks have to be broken if it all will end up having what we can call a leveled playing field so that both women and men, boys and girls in their diversity can have an opportunity to participate, to be represented, but also the participation to be transformed into a voice and influence because participation is one thing we can participate and we are seeing the world over women are participating as voters as free billboards for political parties. You know, when we wear the regal years of political parties, we wear them with a lot of satisfaction as members of political parties, for instance. So women are already participating, but that participation is not being translated into representation that is turning the numbers, the physical presence, the politics of presence into having a voice and influence. And this is the perennial challenge. This is the challenge across the world. In many countries, we are no longer contesting the issue of whether women can, can be voters or they can even stand for election, but you actually find well, while this is provided and the electoral systems are also designed with enabling electoral systems, we have the implementation, for instance, of gender quotas of various forms. And some parties across the world, if you look at the international idea, gender quotas database on www.idea gender quotas database, you'll find that even some political parties implement voluntary party quotas, which are not legislated, but because they know the essentials towards achieving democracy and having gender equality and making sure that gender equality becomes an enabler for achieving democracy. Political parties are implementing voluntary party measures. I would like to wind up. I can see that my dear sister moderator Mildred, she's spotlighting on me, but I want to emphasize that break the bias will not happen by there is no one size fit all answer. We need to have multi dimensional approaches. And these approaches have to cascade to different areas of life, spheres of life. It's not just politics. It's even what happens in the media. And I want to acknowledge, like you have said, Mildred, that we have media colleagues who are in the media are also participating because the media can is a very key driver of messages and stereotypes, and it can also be a tool for transformative change, the change that you would also like to see. It's not just also the media and politics, but even the education, which is why our parliamentarians, both women and men have a fundamental responsibility in terms of the education in the different countries across the world. Not education just for the technical side, but education to build holistic and empowered citizens in all parts of the regions. Break the bias. It will not just happen on its own. Break the bias. We need both the engagement of both women, men, boys and girls in their diversity. It's not a women's problem. It's not a women's issue. And the world would be a better place if we can all break the bias because women are able, but they are roadblocks and barriers that are always in the way. Thank you colleagues for your attention and thank you, moderator Mildred, for the opportunity to make some provide some reflections. Thank you. Thank you very much, my sister Rubens. I just want to affirm you for being able to unpack the issues so clearly. And my takeaway from what you talk about, I've actually asked myself, so should we stop looking for policy formulation? We formulated all the policies that we need. We have enough policies, both global, regional, national policies. Are we implementing those policies? Should we give it a pause and say, we can connect the national to the regional to the global? And then it's so interesting how you have unpacked the critical minority. And you know, it brings in the questions, even though we as women across African countries encompass over 50% of the electorate. In most instances, we are like 70% of the electorate, but still look at us, our representation is still low. In reflection, maybe in just a few seconds, Rubens I. Do you think that our agitation through policy formulation, formulation and implementation is enough that we should wrap up now and now venture into other options of education? What are your thoughts? That's a difficult and challenging one, Mildred. So I will not claim that I have a perfect answer, but just reflecting from the past experiences of over 28 years in the gender equality and women's rights movement. Since the Beijing even pre Beijing declaration and platform of action, the point where we are now really is to say, I believe the frameworks are there, the policies are there, but the implementation is what is lacking. And why is that lacking? And why is it not happening? When we are giving particular attention and driving the agenda for gender equality and women's empowerment systems across the world and in this platform, we need to understand that the bottom line is about the redistribution of power. And because it's about the redistribution of power, there will always be resistance and reluctance to those who have power. How many of us are benevolent enough to give up power, even if we start within the household sphere? How many of us are benevolent enough to give up any power and control that we have? So as long as it's okay to advocate, let me say, for the policies, the formulation, we needed that in order to set the frameworks to create enabling environments. And I'm one person who always say, sometimes our cultural practices, norms and traditions will have to catch up with the legal provisions that are progressive. So we need that. And that's why I emphasize Mildred. It's multi-dimensional. We need the policies, but the policies have to be translated into implementable strategies that actually transform and bring a reality and changes, such that we are not just signing off policies and declarations, and then we put them there. We have national gender policies. We have national gender machineries that we upload those milestones. But how are we committing to translating them into implementable strategies that are transformative? And this is the big question that we have before us, Mildred, as we all reflect on break the bias. And in order to do that, you also need to be mindful that it has to have financial implications. How much are we willing to put in financially and otherwise all the resources into those transformative changes on breaking the barriers and leveling the playing field between women and men and enabling opportunities compared to maybe what we put in in the military? You know, those are sensitive issues again, and they bring in the dimensions of gender budgeting. Our national budgets and priorities vis-a-vis poverty, reduction, gender equality, women's empowerment and military and security issues. And especially our countries going through so many conflicts, which are essentially also driven by political egos. So it's very complicated. There is no, like, a linear process, but I think essentially our commitment has to be implementing strategies that really transform mindsets as well and also practices and behaviors. And it has to be sustainable, not ad hoc. As much as we eat every day, we need also to do that on a daily basis, if I may say. Thank you. Oh, Rubens, I thank you. I hear your passionate plea. I hear your passionate appeal about connecting those dots. The policies must translate into action. I hear you and I do now really appreciate even more your expertise on international advocacy on gender equality that we need so much, especially on this WPP project. Colleagues, I am rubbing my hands to just clap for Rubens I as we wait. I know I can't see you. I can't see you, but if you're clapping for Rubens I please know that you are actually a very honest person and we need you. We need that honesty in this space. So thank you very much Rubens I. This has given us food for thought. I've taken in quite a bit of notes from your presentation and yes, indeed it is important that we all take that into consideration. So colleagues, please may you allow me to welcome in a presentation of preliminary findings of the WPP Africa situation analysis by Dr. William Poffoo. Dr. William Poffoo will come in as a researcher at the WIT Center of Diversity Studies located in the University of Wittwater running Johannesburg. He has contributed to the North Africa section of the WPP Africa situation analysis report and led its consolidation. Dr. Poffoo is a researcher. He's a fellow of good governance Africa in Joe Bag and has been a consulting researcher at the subject of gender-based violence and GBV within the Institute of Security Studies. Quite a powerful profile there. Dr. Poffoo, we welcome you and just to let you know that we appreciate the men within the process of women's political emancipation. Because we do need the voice of the other gender to emphasize quite a bit of the work that we do. Welcome, Dr. Poffoo. Thank you so much, Mildred, my colleague. I would like to begin quickly also by saluting the colleagues at International Idea and the relevant consortium for giving us an opportunity to participate in this important research on an important and very much weighty subject which is women's political participation in Africa. Without wasting time, I want to go into the fundamentals of the research itself as a methodical, systematic, academic, as well as professional work that we have had to do with colleagues. Our research objectives were from the beginning to develop high quality and factual products depicting up to date situation on women's political participation in Africa. The specific objectives of the assignment being identifying key concerning issues on women's political participation in Africa. Looking at the case studies that are best and worst practices for women's political participation in Africa. And then in putting into the research paper key facts and data on women's political participation. And then identifying enablers of political participation for young women linking this with intergenerational dialogues. Identifying key drivers of women political participation in conflict, no conflict and post-conflict situations in Africa, of which there are many. And then highlighting emerging issues or trends in women's political participation in Africa. These objectives, as you might observe, were aimed at really cutting into the meat of the situation of women's political participation in Africa. And then coming up with specific and concrete details as to what should be done after this. The research questions that followed these objectives became what are the key issues concerning WPP in Africa? What are the major issues that are emerging? What are the case studies for the best and worst practices in WPP in Africa? What are the key facts and figures in WPP in Africa? What are the enablers of WPP in Africa? What are the drivers of women's political participation in conflict and no conflict and post-conflict countries in Africa? And what are the emerging issues there from or trends in women's political participation? These questions, as well, pursuant to the objectives, were targeted at drawing out of our data sources, our respondents, our participants, and other resource persons called in trifects about the situation of women's political participation in Africa. And why this research, why this time, and why us as an international idea in this relevant column, we observed as a research team that the constitutions of all African countries pronounce on women's political participation. They are statutes and articles declaring women's political participation. Most countries have ratified some international, continental, and regional gender parity standards. They are strong currents of political rhetoric, right from the past, the founding fathers, specifically founding fathers of Africa, pronounced on women's political participation. Most African governments have ministries of women affairs and related. Some African countries have national gender parity policies and women are populous in these countries. Population-wise, women are a majority. There are some impressive statistics on WPP as well, but the paradox now is that there's some of the statistics, the impressive statistics that we encounter, conceal rather than reveal the actual situation of women political participation in Africa. The 50-50 mark of representation is still a lucy. And what shapes the research problem there for us is with all these groundworks, all these constitutions, all these policies, all these ministries that are geared for women political participation, why are we not getting to the 50-50 mark? Why is the implementation still sterling? That's what creates a research dilemma that we have to confront. With all the resources available, with all the infrastructures and systems in place, why are we not achieving the set goals? That is the burden of this research in pursuit of the full and effective participation of women in politics. What I can say briefly under this section is that there is participation, as our colleague was saying just now, but the condition of that participation, the quality of that participation and the nature of that participation is compromised, and most times also compromising to women political participation, as I will flesh out just here. And what is the rationale, colleagues, of this important research that international idea and the consortium have generated? There is a flourish of literature on gender in politics. There is a flourish of women political activism and the contribution of women to the liberation development and democratization of their countries. Colleagues have been celebrating here achievements of women, their contribution, what they've been doing in different countries in the continent. There are even departments of gender studies in universities in Africa. But the women political participation specifically is understudied and under-researched. There is not much literature on women political participation specifically. There is an abundance of theoretical works, a paradigmatic work, documentation, but on women political participation there is a poverty, death of literature that is needed. There is need for research and evidence, facts and figures on WPP. The growing repression and exclusion of women in politics demands that the scourge of violence against women in Africa, which has grown to pandemic levels, the long history of politics as the domain of men. The Africa we want and the development goals that we've embraced demand that women participate in politics and that research is be conducted to tease out messages and meanings on what is to be done to enhance women political participation in the continent. And women's rights are human rights that cannot be substituted for any other and that cannot be postponed. So it's a serious developmental, democratic and social justice goal to engage with the subject of women political participation in research, in activism and praxis in Africa. Quickly I want to run through the themes that guided our research with the team that we've been working with. What are the subtopics, what are the headlines that have been guiding us as a compass in seeking our information that is important to flesh out to me. The situation analysis on women political person has been carried out under the following key themes, normative frameworks. That is the international, continental and regional standards that are available for countries to ratify and domesticate in their individual context. The second theme was representation of women in political decision making. Where are the women in cabinet of ministers, where are the women in parliaments and where are the women in municipal councils and how many are they there and what roles are they playing. That's a point of inquiry there. We also investigated the barriers to women political participation in Africa. What are the roadblocks, stumbling blocks and those inhibitions that prevent women from achieving full and effective political participation in the continent of Africa. We investigated the electoral systems and temporary measures in place. We also investigated the financing of political parties of elections and of other organizations that have to do with women political participation. What is the resourcing like, what are the prohibitions, what are the roadblocks and all that. And we propped electoral management in Africa. How does it enable or disable women political participation? And the elephant in the room that the ambassador referred to and that our colleague also referred to, which is violence against women in politics. Followed by the role of political parties that are supposed to act as gatekeepers as in letting in women into the political landscape. But in the majority tend to be goalkeepers that prevent women from entering the political arena in Africa, which is one of the problems that we observed. And we did look at the role of the media and the role of civil society. These are the pressure points that things that we followed in our research as we propped the status of WPP in the continent of Africa. And quickly, time is not on our side. I want to highlight some of the key findings of our situation analysis. Number one, the majority of African countries have ratified international continental and regional gender parity standards. A few countries, especially in North Africa, have some reservations that they have put in place. And the reservations are mainly based on religion, culture, and other ideological and cultural beliefs that make it difficult for these societies to permit the full and effective participation of women in politics. These findings are just a helicopter survey of the findings that are in the report. This is just to highlight the purposes of this important gathering. Most countries have domesticated the normative standards. Women's representation in elected parties is still far below the desired 50%. And the quality of the representation is worrisome. It's mainly tokenistic, symbolic, and ceremonial. In most African countries, women are proteinists, tokens, pawns that are used just to say, you see this political party, this government, and so many women. But the roles that those women are given in those political parties are not representative, like what the ambassador was saying. Those roles are not effective. They remain tokenistic, ponish, symbolic, and ceremonial. Where women are protein just to be celebrated and honored, but they are not allowed to function as meaningful political leaders, like their male counterparts. There is a multiplicity of barriers against women political participation. Key among these is the political cultures in governments and political parties that are still the domain of men, cultures and traditions, including relations, the matter of finance, violence, limited education for women that incapacitates them from being effective participants in politics. Lack of political will at different levels, societal prejudice. Our societies in Africa don't want to take women seriously. When women appear on the stage politically, we want to look at their looks. We want to look at their fashion sense. We want to concentrate on their beauty as if their job is to decorate the political landscape, not to function as leaders and not tokens, pawns, and other problematics. Then the electoral management bodies dominated by men and their management is masculine and exclusionary. A number of countries actually do not have these bodies. And then there is a political parties are male dominated and male centric. Most have not internalized within their political parties the national policies of gender courage, which is a gap there. And then the issue of violence against women in politics, which is a continental malady. Quotas for women are a double-edged sword, whether they are legislated or voluntary. Temporarily, they are the best. They do quickly make women visible, women available in the political landscape. But they are not a permanent solution in the long journey for women presence and women participation in politics. They are an affirmative action measure that is a process and cannot be permanent. So women need to be recognized as leaders and recognized equally and fully like their male counterparts. Not just tolerated and protein at a certain stage as placeholders, not effective functionaries in politics. Then there is the impressive role of women rights organizations in Africa. We have just been talking about some of them that are in this consortium. Our colleague who introduced this meeting did highlight the work of these organizations that must be celebrated and also enhanced and helped to do more progress towards the pursuit of full and effective WPP. And then we do not know enough, we realized in this research that we do not know enough, more research on WPP is needed. And work on the quality and content of the existing women political participation is essential. Who are the women that are representing us? What is the kind of leadership and the kind of roles that they are given? In my own portion of North Africa and looking a bit at the MENA region, I was tackled by women who make it in North Africa into political positions. Some of them become mayors, some of them become ministers. In this difficult society, in this impossible landscape, what kind of woman makes it against all these barriers? And then I realized something that is quite uncanny when I started looking at, but who are these women that managed to prevail against the odds? And my observation was that most of these women that make it are women that are daughters, wives, mistresses or relatives of powerful men in those societies. So these are women that are privileged already and their placement, their participation is somehow delegated from sponsored by patriarchal, masculine and male power. So it's something worth observing. Who are the women amongst women? What is the caliber of women that represent us? Where do they come from and what is the quality and nature of their representation? So in that region in particular, it was darking to discover that most of these powerful women that we tend to celebrate somehow come as ambassadors of male power, not women on the ground, the women that really need the representation and the participation that we're talking about. Those are some of the tragic observations that researchers have the misfortune to encounter on the road. And then there's the big issue of constitutional reforms that are necessary almost in every country. There is a need for constitutions to be reformed in order to effectively enable gender parity, full and effective women political participation. I will highlight some conclusions that our study arrived at, which is what our ambassador here highlighted, which is the challenge of implementation. With all the constitutional pronunciations, normative frameworks internationally, continentally, regionally and nationally, we can't implement. There's the teeth of research and evidence, information and knowledge on WPP. There can be a flourish of literature, so many theories and so many intellectuals and theorists on WPP. But there is still a scarcity of evidence and research literature that can be used by policymakers and such groupings as ITA and its consortium partners in actually pursuing workable and effective projects on the ground. So there's need for further research. There's a gap in education, skilling and capacity, capacitation of women politicians in Africa. The candidates that are forwarded, that are pushed to participate are not given the intellectual professional and practical resources of functioning in their posts, which makes it a problem when women are elected in certain numbers. Then in the next election, those women are not re-elected. People say they did not lead well, they did not keep their promises, therefore they are going to abandon them and vote men. Because we did not skill them, we did not educate them, we did not capacitate them, we did not give them the backing that they need in order to function as effective leaders that can be elected. And then the smoky theory of change, shuttle theory of change that limits practices. What exactly do we want? I think from what our ambassador was saying and what colleague was saying ahead of us, we need full and effective participation of women in politics, which is the quality of participation that we demand. And that quality participation requires that women political participants are resourced, are equipped, are skilled and are supported at multiple levels in order for them to achieve the mark of leaders. Otherwise at the end of the day, we advance these women, we put them there, only to help our patriarchal societies prove the false point that after all women are not good leaders. Because we have not begged them, they have not been capacitated. I think it's a point to be taken home by idea, the greater consortium, that there is important work to be done in capacitating, equipping, skilling and backing women political participants in the continent. And the need for deep partisanization of WPP, women political participation is not the work of political parties. It does not have to have a partisan categorization like women of this party, women of that party. It should be work that across the partisan divide, across the ideological divide, across political loyalties is seen as the foundation and the fundament of political work itself. It should fly above partisan interests, taking off sides, choosing of camps in politics. And then also, there are limited human and financial resources. There are few human beings, there are few professionals, there are few intellectuals, there are few experts that are working in the field of WPP. And of course, the elephant in the room, limited financial resources that limit what women's rights organizations can do on the ground. And then I want to highlight some conclusions, I'm continuing to do that. I'm now highlighting some recommendations. Based on the findings and mainly the barriers to WPP in Africa, they start to table some recommendations to governments, political parties, the media and civil society. These are the categories under which we attempted to supply relevant recommendations. Again, for purposes of this brief presentation, I cannot flesh out the whole arena of findings that we came up with. I will just flash a few that are general to Africa. As you go through the... I think I'm right at the end. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much. To governments... Sorry, we seem to have lost you, Dr. Pofu. Can you hear me now? Okay, now we can hear you, right there, yes. Kindly please summarize. Thank you, sir. Thank you, let me run through. Yeah, we thought that governments should integrate into school curricula the importance of WPP so that we naturalize it and make it normal and make society understand that women can be leaders. And that governments should also have available financial and human resources to do the WPP work. Governments should enact constitutional reforms that enhance WPP. Governments should see the full enforcement of laws that prohibit gender-based violence. Governments should rely on research and evidence, latest information and knowledge on gender parity. Governments should effect affirmative action measures for women. Governments should regularly monitor and evaluate their gender parity programs. And governments should have a full ministry dedicated to women as phase. And governments should have elected municipal administrations. Some governments not have elected municipal administrations, especially in North Africa. What I will do, my colleagues, is that I will not go on to flesh out the recommendations to the media, recommendations to civil society, recommendations to political parties as they are just written in the PowerPoint slide here. This is also the main report that we have. In the interest of time, I will want to pen off my presentation here and hope that I did my part in just flashing the highlights of what our report contains after this important research. Once again, thank you very much to IDA and the relevant consortium and to all of us in attendance and in participation here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Pofu. Actually, you have done more than enough in unpacking such important aspects of the research. And our hope is that, of course, international idea will avail this presentation to the consortium members, because this is very, very important, very useful for them. So as we get into this, almost the final panel of discussion today, please, I want to remind you, colleagues and comrades to continue with the social media amplification of this meeting of this gathering. Use the hashtag, hashtag break the bias. You can use hashtag women lead Africa. Hashtag IWD 2022. And of course, hashtag women must lead. I'll repeat that hashtag break the bias. Hashtag women lead Africa. Hashtag IWD 2022 and hashtag women must lead. It's all important for us as we are doing our work to venture into amplification of what it is that we are doing so that it is out there. And it adds a lot of value to our efforts for WPP. So now colleagues, I want us to get into the section where we have panelists, very credible for panelists who've taken up various research aspects within this WPP project. So panelists from the sub-regional areas giving us insights onto the situation of women in political participation. Because of time, I am going to give each panelist at least five minutes to just capture their thoughts onto their sub-regional analysis on the situation of women's political participation. We have five days, Timber, Timber and Sofu from Southern Africa, Dr. Sadiqi, Maresera from Western Central Africa, Helen Malinga-Apila speaking on behalf of Eastern Africa, and again Dr. William Pofu speaking for Northern Africa. So without further ado, my question and my push to the panelists is just to grab five minutes to give us just five minutes so that we can give room to what's coming next. Give us an insight into women's political participation in your region, in the sub-region. May I start with five days, Timber, Timber and Sofu of Southern Africa, then Dr. Sadiqi, Maresera. Thank you so much, Mildred. I was a researcher for Southern Africa and just a few insights for Southern Africa. For Southern Africa, I think one of the things that we looked at was the normative laws as regards to the implementation of gender laws and it's around international conventions, regional conventions and sub-regional conventions. And out of all the 15 countries in the region, it was actually it was discovered that we found out that we all signed apart from, we all signed the Sadiq Protocol on Gender and Development and the updated version of the 2015 but only South Africa and Malawi are yet to amend the 2015 version of the Sadiq Protocol on Gender and Development. And we also looked at the gender machinery driving the gender agenda at country level just to ensure that some of the provisions of the international and regional instruments are actually adhered to. And what we actually found out from the research is that even though we all have national gender machineries present in Southern Africa countries, one of the things that was lacking is a strong mandate and a strong of high level commitment on internal constituency but also high dependence on extent of funding, which made it very difficult for the gender machinery to actually implement but also mainstream in sectoral ministries. And then we also learned that in Zambia actually with the new government on board, the gender machinery was actually removed and now we are working with where the gender machinery is sitting. The other findings were as regards to representation of women in decision bodies. And I think we, there were a lot of patriarchal norms, cultural norms, impending on some of, you know, women participation in politics. I think most of the cultural norms are actually same in the Southern region. And we thought probably it's one of the things that we needed to do going forward a study on cultural norms and how they affect the politics within the Southern region but also in Africa as a general, but also political parties. The adoption system of women in position making in political parties. I think there's very little support from political parties as regards to women participation but also data in terms of information and statistics as regards to women participation starting from, I think the adoption and the discrimination systems. The other thing is the role of the media. When we looked at the role of the media will find that there's a lot of, I think, bullying cyber bullying. And also, I think the role of the media in as much as said done so well there is no strategy as regards to how the media could promote elections, especially for women. There's also a very clear strategy around the role of the media and promoting women in political situation and spaces, but also civil society representation. We noted that civil society plays a very important role in supporting and realizing a democratic process in elections. But then there's the shrinking civic space and there's a lot of violence but also intimidation around organizations, those who are supporting a political representation of women. I think there's also a need for critical analysis of the role of civic civil society organization in terms of harmonizing elections in some countries this has been done but I think we need to have harmonized standards but also harmonized analysis within the countries in the southern region. There's also electrical violence trends in southern Africa. I think this was highlighted especially cyber bullying. And also, we looked at head speech. And I think this is really growing. We looked at belittling remarks. Gender, Angosexual harassment and embarrassment of leadership quality, gender stereotype grows, and I think there's need also to critically look at the qualifications, but most importantly, Electro management board is an election, Electro financing in southern Africa. I think there's no financing as regards to women, political participation. And I think this is what we need to critically look at. I think most mostly the roadblocks has been around the financing of both men and women. And it's fun that the men currently have the huge finance muscle and women really are grappling and this is the cause of mostly harassment and embarrassment because women tend to shun away because of the issue of Electro financing but also Electro management bodies which are male dominated. So basically this is one of the things that we looked at in southern Africa in a nutshell, and we have some of the recommendations that I think it's one of the things that Dr. Pofu looked at. So thank you very much from southern Africa. Thanks Mildred. Thank you. Thank you very much fighters for very quickly capturing those important points. I'll now call on the researcher, Dr. Sadiki Marisera from who contributed to the Western Central Africa section of the situational analysis Dr. Sadiki. Five minutes for you please capture the outstanding points that you want to bring out. Thank you very much. Thank you very much moderator. As you realize that most of the points have already been noted by our main presenter, Dr. Pofu. My trust using the five minutes allocated to be on in the sizing on the policy recommendation. Everything realized that you know that overcome certain obstacles to women parties, political participation. Changes must be initiated simultaneously from from above by the state and from below by civil society, international development agencies, political parties and the women's associations. Women's political participation is really. One of those. One of the issues to be included among the changes brought about in the process democratization under way in West Africa and several efforts that we made by different government to address the law representation of women in elective and appointment positions in West Africa. For instance, in Nigeria, there has been an establishment of this women's political empowerment office in the Nigerian women trust. The pollination mod stakeholder dialogue and also. You realize that they need there's need for harmonization of social cultural liquor and policy pronouncement. So that coordinated effort are not discriminatory in enhancing the status of women in political participation and public life. The efforts being steadily done in Nigeria, for instance, Ghana, Senegal, Cameroon, Pekina Faso, Gambia and Mali. These have led to the establishment of the national agenda coordinate in every government and of course, civil society groups and international agencies have an input. Then of course, you realize that there's need also to review the electoral code and in designing some communication strategies among women themselves so that they can at least support each other. In the democratic division process through participation in politics in most, if not all these West African countries. And of course, there's also need to create and build a feminist movement and female political solidarity. During a feminist political movement to promote female solidarity political solidarity is necessary. Why? Because this will build a shared consciousness based on shared experiences and interests. And of course. These mentioned efforts seek to improve the evidence-based planning and programming involving women in decision-making, increase the support of stakeholders on measures to increase representation of women in decision-making, and further improve awareness of new ad-focus tools among stakeholders in order to support the campaign for increased representation of women in decision-making. And of course, my last thought about this couple of minutes ago. It's like the idea should continuously take the policy and academic initiative so that at least an international strategic framework or template be formulated through brainstorming from the level of local, regional and international state and non-state data, including civil society, on a periodic auditing of progress in as far as the participation of women in politics reference teaching and making processes is concerned. I think that that is what I have for you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Marisera. Thank you for those important points. And I'm sure idea has taken note, especially the important point of strengthening as a feminist foundation to advance the issues of WPP. Thank you, Dr. Marisera. And like I said, these presentations, of course, will be available to all the participants. We now welcome Helen Malinga-Apila to come in and speak. The researcher contributed to the East Africa section of the WPP Africa situational analysis report. Helen, you're welcome. You are a gender and development expert. Please give us the perspective from the Eastern African situational analysis. Thank you, Mimred. And good morning, good afternoon, depending on where you are. From the East African analysis, the analysis covered most of the African countries in East Africa as well as the whole of Africa. And what is coming out is that the majority of the countries, both in East and all over Africa, have ratified all the international and regional treaties that are touching on women and leadership provisions. But what is very critical note is that although most of these countries have made efforts to domesticate the provisions in the normative frameworks in form of constitutional and legislative reforms, they domesticate, you know, the domestic instruments, most of them are still shying away from providing for the 50-50 target that is provided for in the global and regional instruments, such as the Maputo Protocol. What is also, we looked at was the national gender machinery. I will just point to one example where we see that women's wings, for example, the women's machinery are very key in supporting the structure for women, but also for information sharing. And if these machineries do not exist, then the women are facing challenges in terms of building capacity. A good example that we found was, for instance, in Burundi under the ruling National Council for Defence and Defence Forces, they had set up a specific women's league that gives training to women to empower them to get into politics. We also looked at civil society and the role they play. It was very highlighted that a lot of civil society organizations, international as well as the media, are playing a critical role. But to highlight the media, the challenge is that they are not providing equal support and access for amplification of women's voices and their contribution during the post-elections. But also there is a big issue around the cyber violence against women, specifically those who are aspirants. We looked at the sub-regional trends in terms of women's representation, and we saw that where there is no power or political will, it's very difficult to achieve these targets of 30% or the 50% provided for women's representation. And the examples that we have, for example, Ethiopia that is currently ranked 31 globally and the sixth in Africa in terms of women's representation, the government took action to guarantee fundamental changes to the way people think and also provided a conducive environment by conditioning political parties to make sure that women are elected under the parties. And we are making a strong recommendation that is not enough to have frameworks and policies in place. You need to have enough facilitation for women's participation in political leadership and there is need to put in place mechanisms for implementation and continuous tracking. Of course, in terms of representation, the numbers are glaring. You still notice that in eastern Africa, women are still underrepresented as voters, as civil servants as well as private sector and academia, and this is all happening despite the constitution of provisions. It's very difficult to articulate the issues of representation without looking at the fact that women only constitute 28% of elected commissioners, for example, across East Africa. And we looked at the institutions that facilitated elections, like the election monitoring bodies in the sub-region, and here only 28% of women are represented as commissioners in those boards. And they play a critical role in ensuring that women definitely will be having a very simple and level ground. We looked at the whole of East Africa and we saw that I think women's representation as commissioners still stands at the best performing institution or mechanism that facilitates elections. But we underscore the fact that although this is happening, they still have not managed to achieve the 50th requirement within the electoral laws. We want to also highlight the fact that in the sub-region, women were least represented at most of the executive leadership positions. All the countries that were reviewed, only women constituted 12%. And what is important to emphasise is that if countries continue to move at the kind rate, gender parity in decision-making will not be achieved by 2030 as committed and articulated in the SDGs. There were only 21% of parliamentary speakers and 33% were in East Africa and there was none in the countries that were within the whole of Africa. And that is very critical to analyse to understand what were the contributing factors for that. The other thing we looked at was women in local governance and we saw that a pathway towards, you know, there are only 35% in Eastern Africa and there is none in the whole of Africa. And the reason for that is there is still apathy towards women in political participation because of poor civic education. And until governments invest in civic education, women in East Africa will still not be able to achieve the target. It's also notable that in the region, there are no women mayors of capital cities and also in the whole of Africa there was only 20%. So that is a key position and we need to see how that is addressed. We looked at barriers and we saw that despite the political parties encouraging women's participation and all the constitution of provisions through the quotas, the social pressure still remains a very important barrier. The traditional attitudes towards gender equality are very key and their stumbling block and culture is still that belief that women are supposed to be led but not to be leaders. And I'm going to focus more on the ecosystem of elections and how it's a barrier. So we looked at electoral systems, the design of the actual electoral systems in the governance structure. May I ask that you summarise, Helene? Yes. So the country in the region adopted different electoral systems and we realised that the proportionate representation system still provided for the highest representation of women. And the other systems like the mixed system, for example, the Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia, they still have not been able to achieve the 55th leader above the 50th presentation. And in conclusion, financing and visibility and networks play a very critical role in the success of women's participation and this combined with the systems and practices would contribute to more women. The quota systems are failing the women. It's a promise that is not being implemented because the country still have a choice to choose either the form of reserved seats either directly for individual women or reserved candidature. And this is playing a very critical role in terms of the participation of whether women get nominated or elected at all. We have very good examples, comparisons in the different countries, but to conclude, I want to emphasise that the question of whether the quota systems really function or not for women. There is a need, there is already a push to review the electoral systems towards either a proportionate representative or a system that is mixed. So the systems need to be reviewed if we are to see more representation of women in governance. Back to you Mildred. Thank you. Thank you very much Helen. Obviously there's a lot still to reply to present on of course the East African region as is in the other regions. Dr. Pofu, I don't know whether out of the presentations and including what you had presented earlier, there is something that stands out for Northern Africa that you'd like to share with us. For just one minute, for Northern Africa, I realise that the presenters for the region have captured a lot on what you had also presented earlier. Is there something you'd like to capture for us for Northern Africa that is specific? Dr. Pofu. Thank you there for that opportunity. Yes, Northern Africa has a very interesting dynamics for WPP starting back and then coming forward to the present. If you look, for instance, countries like Egypt, you'll find literature that narrates the history of the contribution of women in WPP, right from those women that were farrows, women that became farrows of Egypt. But how that influence, that political presence and alignment of women has been lost through modernisation and democratisation. You find that women had power in the past that they no longer have in the present. You go to countries like Tunisia in particular, you realise that as early as 1956, these are countries that were leading in WPP. But those purists, those achievements, get eroded in time. But mainly in North Africa, what can be observed is the problem of how religious beliefs and cultural beliefs, traditions and customs are the major stumbling block where women themselves have internalised the construction that women cannot be leaders, that women are naturally followers and that their work is in the domestic sphere, as mothers, as theorists, as wives and daughters, not as thought leaders and community leaders. So those are some of the highlights that I think the North African context flashes at us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Pofu, for a very important aspect there about how religious limitations actually impact or influence women's political participation. Now colleagues, comrades, we realise, and I know our international idea can see this, that the time is short for this important conversation. We have already surpassed our two hours, but I would like to open this discussion for input from the participants in the meeting right now. If there is somebody who has a burning issue that they would like to contribute in, that they would like to ask or suggest or propose or just to contribute, this is a good time to have a word. And also, while we are getting that done, I hope the technical team can help us with that. May I also open this out to the panel in terms of the discussions we've had for the whole day today? Now that we have, can we say that we have the numbers of women's political participants in the top office in our countries rising? Now that we have our president in Tanzania, I want us to discuss a little bit what it means to have the numbers rising at the top, as opposed to to the bottom. Which approach in your view is more beneficial in our pursuit for total WPP in Africa? Numbers at the top, because when we are looking at the statistics, at the analytics, the numbers at the top are much lower than the numbers at the bottom. What is your take? I'll open this up to all the panelists. If you feel like you want to take it up, please take it up now as we wait and hope that any of the participants will also come in. What is your take on the numbers at the top? Yes, Fidesz, do you want to come in now? Yes, I think numbers at the top entails amplified voice, numbers at the top entails eco-participation, numbers at the top entails accountability. And so when we have numbers at the bottom, we are not represented and there's no sustainable development. So if we have to achieve sustainable development, if we have to look at the commitments we've made as a region, as Africa, we need to have the numbers at the top. We need to pay more attention to women's issues, who then have reduced levels of famicide, who have reduced levels of gender-based violence, who have reduced levels of poverty, and who also have more attention on women's health issues, but also importantly would have achieved equality and sustainable development. Thank you. Thank you, Fidesz. Thank you, Fidesz. Very important because it brings into perspective what Honorable Ambassador Fatou Mandagi has talked about briefly. She alluded to the fact that numbers don't matter as much as content. They do matter, but content too matters. The quality of the leadership at the top by women of course matters. Is there anybody else also at the panel would like to join into this conversation briefly? The numbers at the top vis-a-vis the numbers at the bottom. What are our thoughts when it comes to women's political participation in Africa? Anybody can just pick this up from the panel please. Thank you. Helen, did I see your hand up, Helen? Go ahead. Yes. It's imperative that we have more numbers at the top because this is where decisions are made. It also means inclusion. It means voice. It means that the voice of the women when decisions are being made is present, is visible, and is heard. It also means that resources would go to the right investment areas. Women are known for utilizing resources better. Women are also known for being honest, for having integrity, and women are developers. Women, when you put women in leadership positions at the top, it means that you are going to have better policies, you're going to have better investments, and you're going to have quick responses to the immediate needs of the people. And since women care for everyone, it means there will be equal development across the countries. Back to you, Mildred. Thank you. Very interesting thoughts there. Very interesting thoughts. The born of contention therefore would be do our communities, societies and constituents view women in that same light to trust them enough to increase the numbers at the top. I don't know whether Honorable Ambassador Fatuma is still with us and what your thoughts are to this discussion, because we have always argued about having the numbers as women at the bottom, but it doesn't reflect with the numbers at the top of women in political participation. Honorable Ambassador Fatuma, if you can come in for just a few seconds, we'd really appreciate that. Thank you so much, Madam Moderate, and I really want to thank all the panelists for very elaborate and really well researched presentation that they made. I think you need to share the data with all of us. It will enhance our advocacy and I really want to thank you there for investing in data on women political participation. Now the question asking is a bit tricky, because yes, it's good to have women at the top, because the top is a level, the highest level of decision making. Of course, if they are making decisions that matter to women's advancement and also ensuring gender parity, then it's an opportunity for us. It's also about inclusivity. It's also about accountability at the highest level, but women are also at that highest level at the negotiating table where decisions are taken, where budgets can be discussed, where policies can be reviewed, where laws, they can change laws in the favor of women. But then we also need women at the bottom, because remember at the bottom is where you have communities. It's where you have decisions affecting ordinary people, health, education, water. So if at the local government you have more women, it means gender and women's concerns will be mainstream at the highest, at the lowest level, and that will trickle to the top, because the top comes from the bottom. So I think it's all complementary and we shouldn't miss out one. Especially again on changing mindsets and attitudes, the culture barriers, the patriarch itself in the homes. I remember in back at home when we were starting this gender movement, women would attend some of our trainings and I remember at first we were so hesitant to give them per diems because according to our policy and the police of partners, they couldn't allow per diems. But then they told us, you know, it's not that we love money, but you know when you go back, the main tell us, okay, the president is there for, he can give us direction and the orientation. He's heading the nation, but when you're in my home, I am the president, I'm the head of the home. So you either bite by the regulation that I make or you look for another home. And of course that would also imply gender based violence. So what we did was to start giving them per diem for transport. And you know it did, it made miracles when they came back, they said, you know, things have now changed. Because before I reach home, I have to buy a bottle of beer and some meat. I take home. When I reach home, I'm highly welcomed. And now the husband starts, what was the discussion? And next time we had high turnout because the men were pushing, they were saying, please, please don't miss out. Leave the children behind, leave everything, I'll help you in the course. But it also helps in raising awareness and also engaging men in our cause. So in short, I think we need, at the lower level, we need women, visible. We also need them at the top. Thank you. Right. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ambassador Fatuma. And with that, I know we come to a conclusion. It's interesting how you say the numbers at the bottom matter as much as the numbers at the top. When we focus only on the numbers at the bottom and leave out the top, then we actually miss out on some very, very critical, critical participation of women. We appreciate those thoughts, Ambassador Fatuma, and we appreciate the thoughts of everybody who has been very actively participating in today's meeting to international idea. As you can see, it's a virtual meeting. It looked a bit short because there's a lot to discuss to our participants who have joined us. And because of some technical mishaps, we are not able to take up your active participation. We say thank you for being here and listening through. And so now I will hand over to Sifiso Dube of international idea to give us the vote of thanks and closing remarks. Welcome, Sifiso. Thank you so much, Mildred, for giving me this opportunity to give the last words. My task is the easiest but most difficult because I need to recognize everyone on this platform. But first of all, we thank everyone who has taken time to be with us today in the event that is leading to International Women's Day 2022. Our first vote of thanks goes to the founder of this WPP project, the Embassy of Sweden in Addis Ababa. Unfortunately, they couldn't join us because of technical difficulties. I also want to take this opportunity to give thanks to our guest speaker, Honorable Ambassador Fatima Ndanginsa of the Iyala Women's Caucus. And also to thank the WPP situation analysis researchers, led by Dr William Pofu. We had in the panel Dr Pofu, Dr Satik, Fidas and Helen. Thank you so much for taking time. I know they were working extra hard during Christmas holidays to make sure that this report is made available to us by early January. And also to thank our WPP consortium partners from where we've borrowed some of the literature that informed this research, as well as some of the templates that we used in this research. We thank you all genderlings, Wilson, Padare, Ifan, Femnet, as well as Fawe in terms of our consortium partners. We also thank our other panelists, Rumbizai, for being part of us in this panel, giving global insights on the situation of women in political participation. And to all our panelists, thank you for joining us today. I know it's a busy schedule in Women's Month, but thank you for joining us. And last but not least to thank our presenter, sorry, our moderator, Milit Ratingesa. She's been a wonderful person being available at the last minute to join us and keep us in check in terms of time and to make sure that things are going well in order. And to our idea colleagues, thank you for participating and joining us and to the technical team, a great many thanks. Thank you so very much. Thank you very much, Sophie. And please, may we put on our cameras and just clap for each other as we wave the work for women's political participation in Africa continues, and we must soldier on and not falter. We are actually getting to a good point where we are able to merge the bottom and the top, and I know that we will see it in this generation, our numbers increase as well as the substance of our leadership. We wish you well in your work as WPP advocates in whatever space, because it is important and it is critical for the continent. Happy International Women's Day to all of you. Thank you very much and goodbye. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.