• Individual efforts and successes of the few women Members of Parliament and
• Enhanced attention to gender policy including affirmative action.
These areas still need to be
exploited more in order to achieve better women representation in Parliament.
One of the critical reasons for the rise is the impact of women's organizations both inside and outside political parties. Women's organizations should work with political and government institutions to secure electoral changes to facilitate women's nomination and election. This strategy will result in increasing women's representation within legislative bodies. There should be contact and co-operation between women politicians and women's organizations or other broad interest organizations such as trade and labour unions. The Kenya Women
Parliamentary Association (KEWOPA), which is the voice of women in Parliament, should work together with women’s groups towards strengthening the capacity of women Parliamentarians to contribute to gender responsive and affirmative action legislation and policies at all levels, and especially in engendering resource allocation and in increasing the numbers of women in Parliament. They should ensure effectiveness and quality representation and foster collaborations and networking for information exchange, experience sharing, grassroots organizing and mutual support between women politicians and women in other civil society agencies. The marked improvement in
parliamentary representation in long-standing democracies such as Kenya has increased. Some of the factors that this improvement may be traced to include:
• The positive role of women’s organizations,
• Commendable reforms in the electoral system,
A Maasai women holding her child.
female representation in the Kenyan Parliament may also be attributable to some noticeable reforms that in one way or the other impacted on the electoral system and participation of women in electoral processes. The Political
The Parliamentarian | 2010: Issue Three - Kenya | 21