WOMEN WHO INSPIRE


“Africa needs more daring women”


By President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf


The Liberian president was guest of honour at the AWDF 10th Anniversary commemoration and delivered the anniversary lecture on the topic ‘African Women and Political Participation’. “In overcoming the multiple challenges which we as African women confront, it is vital that there be trailblazers such as the AWDF which are striving determinedly for all our women to be empowered,” she said in this abridged version of her speech.


T


he topic of ‘African Women and Political Participation’, is one on which I can speak with some authority – as an African, as a woman, and as


a politician. Every woman here knows, or has experienced, the difficulty in bringing women into the fold of political participa- tion across our continent – from the grass- roots up to the highest office in the land. You are here because you believe that


women’s full political participation can and must happen, not only in Rwanda, South Africa or Mozambique, but in all corners of this vast continent that is our home. We are seeing progress in Afri- can women’s participation in politics, no doubt, although not at the levels we demand. Te job of full equality and to- tal empowerment is incomplete. Let us


42 | NEW AFRICAN WOMAN | WINTER 2011


remember that in the fight to empower women, we can accept no frontiers, only breakthroughs. Governance cuts across all spheres of


representation and decision-making, from the community to national levels. Full political participation will become a re- ality for us, as women, when quotas and set-asides become a relic of the past; when our access in participatory institutions at all levels is considered a right; and when we no longer feel compelled to wage cam- paigns and stage protests in order to have a say in the decisions that affect our lives. Tere is power in numbers. Te lone


female voices one encounters in political circles, including in Africa, are insufficient to effect the changes that are so important to women. As a tiny minority in govern- ance, women could be subjected to pres-


Above: Liberia’s President Johnson-Sirleaf flanked by AWDF co-founders Dr Hilda Tadria (left) and Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi


sures, and their capacities as representa- tives, policymakers and decision-takers are constrained by their numbers. We still need those numbers in critical


mass to make those decisions and make them stick. In such low numbers, and with insufficient clout, women ministers tend to be relegated to, and concentrated in, social areas rather than legal, economic, political and technical functions of government. It goes without saying that when wom-


en are represented in critical numbers in parliaments, as well as at the grassroots level, their perspectives and interests will be taken into account and their concerns given higher priority. Greater political par-


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