When an African man gets a scholarship to study in the UK, he packs everything up and leaves but when a woman gets a scholarship, she asks if the scholarship might extend to support the children.
1 in 31 women in Africa face complications in pregnancy and childbirth compared to 1 in over 4,000 in developed countries.
Only 11 African countries have up to 1/3 female representation in parliament; less than 25% of African formal SMEs are top CEOs; less than 3% of all African Vice Chancellors are women. Yet women dominate the informal SME sectors (over 70% in agriculture which contributes most to climate change), junior lecturer-ship and Schools teacher positions.
Yet Africa loses in excess of 100 billion dollars yearly due to these gender inequalities. So getting women to occupy leadership positions is not only an emotional agenda but an environmental, social and most importantly an economic one.
While gender mainstreaming in all spheres is crucial and on-going, a lot still needs to be done. To fasten this, my mission is mainstreaming male participation and leadership in gender mainstreaming. This was the topic of my talk yesterday as I addressed over 100 corporate women at 'All Girls Can' seminar in Lusaka.
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