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The Zambia National Men’s Network for Gender and Development (ZNMNGD) has called for affirmative action through the introduction constituencies for women and youths only to increase their participation in governance.
Network National Coordinator, Nelson Banda, has noted with concern that for the past three decades, Zambia has been struggling to increase the participation of women and youth in governance but this has failed to achieve the required results.
Banda told Zambia Monitor on Wednesday in Lusaka that the current number of women in Parliament and local government does not respond to the country’s development aspirations.
He said political parties have made mere pronouncements to adopt women to stand for elections, which they have failed to implement because there is no legislation that compels them to adopt equal number of men and women.
Read More:Bank identifies cultural issues as hurdle to ensuring gender equality.“Despite Zambia being a signatory to the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and African Union (AU) protocols, which stipulate that there shall be 50/50 men and women participation in decision making, this provision has failed due to lack of political will as men who are the leaders have chauvinistic attitudes towards women,” Banda said.
He therefore said introducing women only constituencies and wards will help solve challenges of low numbers of women representation.
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