President Lazarushakwera has pledged to champion the election of women to no less than half of the seats in Parliament during the next Malawi Tripartite election.
Chakwera made the remarks on Thursday, during the opening of the First Intergenerational Dialogue on Generation Equality and women’s Leadership being held at BICC in Lilongwe.
Speaking during the function, Chakwera promised to do everything possible to make sure more women do contest in the coming election.
He further renewed the commitments he made at the Paris Forum, to fund and support diverse feminist organizations, promote, expand and protect civic space for feminist action and increase meaningful participation, leadership and decision-making power of women and girls.
He said, “Under Economic Justice and Rights theme, I pledged to increase women’s economic empowerment by transforming the care economy; expand decent work and employment in formal and informal economies; increase women’s access to and control over productive resources and lastly, to promote gender-transformative economies and fiscal stimulus”.
According to Chakwera his government has already started fulfilling many of these pledges through the appointment of women to 41% of the seats in the Cabinet, the appointment of women to head 45% of Malawi’s foreign missions, and the appointment women to 50% of the offices in the Judiciary.
On her part, Dr Joyce Banda Malawi’s Former President and Chairperson of Women’s Empowerment and Development (WED) AFRICA – ASIA, said the Generation Equality forum gives an opportunity for countries to address the critical gaps such as bringing on board millions of women and girls that are still left behind.
Banda also called on women leaders to support the young women and girls and help in making their voices heard.
“Our role under this coalition is to act on demands made by young women movements for youth friendly and youth-led decision-making spaces. Young people are agents of change. Let us work with them, let us support them and more importantly, let us give them space at the decision-making table.” Said Banda.
Also speaking during the function, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf – Former President of the Republic of Liberia and Patron of African Women Leaders Network commended President Chakwera for the efforts made in putting abled women in different positions.
“”You have done so much but it is not enough, Mr President we want you to do more” said Sirleaf.