More Women Needed in Councils - Chombo

September 25, 2006 - (The Herald) Government respects the participation of women in local government and will endeavour to further increase their involvement.

Presenting a country position paper at the just-ended Fourth Africities Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and Urban Development, Cde Ignatius Chombo, said the representation of women in local government in Zimbabwe was still very low.

Zimbabwe has no female executive mayor, only two women lead local government boards, there are merely 42 women councillors in the whole country, no female town clerks at all, just two women are town secretaries and there are only eight female directors in the different councils. He said the number of women holding key positions of leadership and administration was not proportionate to the population of women.

There are 59 rural district councils, 29 urban local authorities and 10 provincial councils. "As regards the participation of women in the socio-political and economic sectors, there is under-representation despite the fact that in Zimbabwe women constitute about 50 percent of the population. "At local government level, women still constitute a small proportion of leadership in council, let alone holding key positions in the administration of councils," Cde Chombo said.

He said in 2000 the Government took a deliberate stance to promote the participation of women in politics and set up the Women in Local Government Forum, which advocates and lobbies for increased women participation. He said the forum had since established gender desks in all urban local authorities. Cde Chombo told the Africities Summit that Zimbabwe was working to upgrade rural councils to the same status as urban councils.

From: http://allafrica.com/stories/200609250553.html