Female Participation in Society and Governance

1. Nothing About Us, Without Us; Youth Civic Engagement Program; Leadtots and Human Development Services Female Participation in Society and Governance Mercy Sosanya (TechWomen Fellow) Head, Nutrition and Dietetics Department, Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi

2. Group Activity • List 3 compelling reasons why female participation in governance is important • List 2 reasons why females don’t participate in governance • Suggest solutions and state who should solve the problem.

3. Society is • Group of people • Living together • more or less ordered community • in persistent social interaction

4. Society is • A large social group • Same geographical or social territory • Same political authority and dominant cultural expectations.

5. Governance • Is how society or groups within a society organize to make decisions. • Determines who has power • Who makes decisions • How other players make their voice heard • How account is rendered.

6. Governance is • the exercise of • Political • economic and • administrative authority • in managing a country’s/society’s affairs.

7. Female participation in society and governance • women’s contribution • to society, leadership and • engagement in decision making processes in their communities.

8. Why Female Participation? • Arguments why women need to be represented • Justice: • Women make up half of the global & Nigerian population, so it is a right.

9. Why Female Participation? • 2)Experience : Different from men’s experiences. • It must reflect in policy-making and implementation e.g. early and forced marriage. Malawi Chief Theresa Kachindamoto

10. Why Female Participation? 3) Interests: Different from men and conflicting, so must be articulated e.g focus on children. 4)The critical mass: Women represent women’s interests better with higher representation e.g. HODs.

11. Why Female Participation? 5)The symbols: Women are attracted to political life if they have role models in the arena. 6)The democracy argument: Equal representation enhances democratization of governance

12. Why Female Participation? • Excluding women is like running with one leg, or clapping with one hand. • Women are the custodians of life • When women influence decision- making, it reduces poverty for all

13. Why Female Participation? • More public money, it is better spent (66% increase). • improved local and national services e.g. NAFDAC • Double benefit of advocating for children’s rights ( % of represented)

14. Why Female Participation? • No gender difference in intellectual, innovation and leadership capacity • Financial power of women as consumers globally - about $28 trillion by 2014. • >50% of global food production

15. Why Female Participation? • In 87 out of 195 countries, women more educated than men. • Left brain dominance (men): analytical, sequential, logical, and detailed. • Right brain and left brain (women); creative, nonlinear, intuitive, and holistic.

16. Why Female Participation? Women are more likely to • see the big-picture, • have stronger emotions, and • rely on their intuition for decision-making than men.

17. Why Female Participation? • How does this right brain – left brain dichotomy affect leadership? • Communication. Each day, women use 8,000 words and up to 10,000 gestures. • Men use 4,000 words and about 3,000 gestures

18. Why Female Participation? • Emotions. Women’s brains are more emotional, while men are more rational • Task orientation. Men - one task per time, women multitask

19. Why Female Participation? • Attention to details. Women absorb and store more information than men. • Therefore, women pay more attention to details than men do.

20. Why Female Participation? • Stress. Men tend to deal with stress much more easily than women • Logic vs. language. Men exhibit better logic skills than women, while women exhibit generally better language skills than men

21. Why Female Participation? • Women and men have important skill areas in which they naturally excel. • Relying primarily on the strength of just one gender as leaders can result in an imbalance of perspectives and ideas.

22. Why Female Participation? • Collaborative leadership leads to: • more innovative thinking. • greater productivity, • higher profits Better competitive advantage

23. Why Female Participation? • Better relationship building and collaboration • Improved health and safety e.g. air bags, • It is a basic human right for women to be included on the decision table.

24. Why Female Participation? • The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, 1979) • stresses the equality of genders across human rights and freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil, or any other field. 

25. Why Female Participation? • The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted by governments at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women. • also affirms gender equality as a human right and commits governments to enhancing women’s rights.

26. Why Female Participation? • The UN Millennium Declaration of 2000 promotes equal rights and opportunities for women and men. • Sustainable Development Goals set specific targets for gender equality.

27. Why Female Participation? • Nigeria ratified the CEDAW • Adopted the Beijing Platform for Action • Signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) • International Covenant on Civil and Political rights (ICCPR), • International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESR),

28. Why Female Participation? • Signed the African Charter of People’s Rights (ACPR). • Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (PRWA, also called the Maputo Protocol). • Nigeria’s gender policy targets 35% representation of women in all political and non-elective positions.

29. Where are we today? • Since 1999, not up to 10% of women in elective positions • No female VP or president. • 2011, only 1 female contestant for President, did not scale primaries. Only 1 vote! • In 2015, 5 out of 14 women for VP, no woman for President

32. Challenges to Female participation • Education in terms of literacy, political and economic education and experience • Culture/religion: Patriarchal society, women must stay out of politics • Violent nature of politics. • .

33. Challenges to Female participation • Psychology: Gender stereotypes, different reasons are planted in women’s minds, on why they should not be involved – the kids, night meetings, suspicion of infidelity, • Poverty and disempowerment: Lack of wealth and resources, easily intimidated.

34. What can we do? • Duty bearers: The government, Male and female leaders, communities, religious institutions. • Quotas: Rwanda: 38.5% of senators are women • Realization of the SDGS

35. What can we do?

36. What can we do?

37. What can we do? • Pre-electoral training of women candidates on transformative leadership and politics. • Dialogue and advocacy to political leaders and other stakeholders for electoral reform. • Support and sponsor women candidates

38. What can we do? • Voter education • Girl child education • Reduce gender-based violence • Provide health and basic services for women • Easy access to information • Eliminate gender stereotypes

39. What can we do? • He-for-she: Men mentor and promote women e.g. Malala’s dad, Hidden Figures • Women support women • Women believe in yourselves • Organize your family to work well along with your leadership roles.

40. Outstanding women • MalalaYousafzai –Pakistan • advocate for girls’ education since she was 11. • Shot at 15 • $3000,000 for girl- Child education in developing countries

41. Outstanding women • Provided food for 300,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanese schools • Pushed UN to recommit to Educating every child. • Intervened in the issue of Chibok girls.

42. Outstanding women • LeymahGbowee – Liberia • Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace • In 2003, ended 14 years of Civil war • United Christian & Muslim women, rich, poor, etc

43. Leymah Gbowee – Liberia • Fasting and prayer • Peaceful Protests • Sex strike • Refused to take no for an answer • Insisted on all the parties coming for peace meeting in Ghana

44. Leymah Gbowee – Liberia • Physically blocked the fighting parties from escaping from peace meeting • Made sure the peace agreement was signed • Democratic election of first female African President

45. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf-Liberia • Cleared National debt of 4.9 billion dollars. • Increased national budget from 80 – 649.7 million dollars in 6 years. • GDP growth rate of 9%. • Dropped inflation rate from 17.5% to 7.5% • $16 billion foreign investment

46. Professor Dora Akunyili • Professor Dora Akunyili - Nigeria, DG NAFDAC • eradication of counterfeit drugs and unsafe food

47. Margaret Thatcher • British Prime Minister 1979-1990 • 1979, decaying society, • Unemployment • Helped poor to buy houses • Reduced taxes, promoted • Entrepreneurship Improved Britain’s economy

48. Angela Merkel – Germany, • 4th term in office, Saved the Euro • Helped Germany to blossom economically in spite of global economic crisis • Introduced Parents’ benefit • Minimum wage 2015

49. Iron Sisters! • Elizabeth Holmes, Founder, CEO Theranos • 2015 –youngest female billionaire at 31 • 1 woman, 100 women • I am adding: • 1 man, 100 women