By Olimatou Coker
The National Council for Civic Education and partners with support from the UNDP has on Friday held a seminar to build the capacity of women and show their confidence to seek elected office as well as participate in decision making.
This forum is part of an effort to promote women’s participation in the upcoming elections, as the authority moves to encourage women to contest for political positions for the betterment of the country.
The theme of the 12 days engagement focuses on “empowering women transforming society”.
Yusupha Bojang, the Chief Civic Education Officer at NCCE, said the training seeks to build the capacity of grassroots women organizations and mobilize support for aspiring female candidates in the upcoming electoral cycle to have more women in the political scene.
Bojang also hailed this move as a strategy to get more female representation in political leadership positions and change the narrative of low women participation in politics.
“We welcome you to this program, an engagement that we call a capacity building session to strengthen the capacities of grassroots women organizations, grassroots women networks to empower them with the relevant skills and knowledge to be able to mobilize support for aspiring female candidates. When we reflect back, you realize that at some point we have climbed the ladder close to the presidency. We had a woman being a vice president for quite a long period. And then at some point, also at the National Assembly, we have seen women consistently occupy either being the Speaker or the deputy speaker. Also, we have seen governors also almost getting in power, males and females. We have some female governors, almost two or three. But right now, we have lost all that, and that means something is wrong somewhere, and that is the reason why partners are worried. Partners are trying to collaborate, build synergies and then try to see, to figure out what actually went wrong.”
Sirreh Sabally, the Lady Councilor of Bureng, commended NCCE and their partners for organizing the training, saying it will empower women to contest for political positions in the country.
She said for women what disturbs them is party politics and that the women need to stand by each other and support each other to get what they want.
“We the women, we are the ones who only know our problems,” she said, adding that when it comes to the National Assembly, women are not many there which is not encouraging at all.
Thomas Kimaru, UNDP project manager, said this training is timely as we move closer to the next electoral cycle, with the aim of electing more women in the National Assembly and local governments.
“As you are aware, only 3 women were elected as National Assembly Members in April 2022 elections, representing 5% of 53 elected NAMs, while only 17 women councilors were elected, representing 14% of 120 elected councilors. This is a trend we aim to change, and meet the Recovery Focused National Development Plan (RF-UNDP 2023-2027) targets of 30% affirmative action to ensure women’s representation across the board.
The role of women organizations and networks at the grassroots level will be key in mobilizing support for aspiring female candidates in a bi-partisan manner.”
