The issue of women in leadership grabs headlines – women have fought for decades to achieve equality. In Kenya, they have lagged behind, with men calling the shots. Some progress has been made, but there’s still more to do to ensure women do not always play the second fiddle to men.
The promulgation of the Constitution of Kenya 2010, was a major score as it placed emphasis on gender equality and women’s participation in the country’s leadership and development agenda.
The 2020 Economic Survey recently released by Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yattani lifted the lid on how women still trail men in leadership.
The study shows that the number of women in key public decision-making positions for the period 2018 to 2019 was low compared to their male counterparts.
It further shows that Chief Administrative Secretaries (CAS) comprise 33.3 per cent of women in appointive decision-making positions in the public service in 2019.
Women County Executive Committee Members (CECM) declined marginally from 31.9 per cent in 2018 to 31.5 per cent in 2019. Other women public officers in appointive positions held less than 30.0 per cent within their positions.
In the Judiciary, the proportion of women magistrates, however, increased from 46.6 per cent in 2018 to 53.3 per cent in 2019.
Minimum one-third requirement
For elective positions, only Members of County Assembly (MCAs) met the threshold of the one-third gender rule at 33.6 per cent, in 2019 with only nine counties failing to meet the minimum one-third requirement. Currently, out of the 349 seats in Parliament, only 76 are female, representing only a fifth of the total.
The Constitution states that Parliament should at least have 117 female MPs, thus it falls short by 41 members. The Senate too, misses the mark with only 21 women owning seats instead of the 23 demanded by law.
Kenya’s political system lags behind its East African neighbours at only 23.5 per cent across government bodies.Rwanda leads with 61 per cent, followed by Tanzania at 36 per cent Burundi at 36 per cent Uganda and 34 per cent and South Sudan at 28.5 per cent.With the exception of Rwanda, none of these countries have attained the African Union standard of 50/50 representation of women in all leadership positions.In the private sector, are not rosy either with women leadership remaining low. A report on gender equality at the workplace released in November 2019, shades a sad reality of women lagging behind in corporate management, […]