At Women’s Power Lunch, Banda seeks more leadership positions for female gender

For decades, the narrative around women on the continent focused on docile, oppressed and second class gender. History from the continent, more or less, taught its readers heroism of great and powerful men. Her story was deliberately stifled or calcified. It was not considered news worthy.

However, in the recent years, there has been a transformation, with many more women taking up spaces in the narrative experience. In fact, a considerable body of literature and historical accounts emerging has come to shatter the impression that African women are just hewers of woods.

Dr. Joyce Banda is one of the female shapers of the new African woman narrative; She has stubbornly proved just the opposite that women on the continent are docile in politics.

Banda, a foremost entrepreneur, activist, politician, and philanthropist, is the founder and leader of the People’s Party in Malawi. In 2013, she was named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME Magazine, and in December 2014, Forbes named her the most powerful woman in Africa and the 40th most powerful woman in the world, while in the same year CNN named her as the most inspirational woman in politics in the world.

Like Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who became the first female President of Liberia in 2006, she has caused a re-evaluation of women’s role as leaders and change agent.

Last Thursday, July 28, 2016, Banda, the former Malawian President, further raised the bar, by challenging a cast of new heroines emerging in the altar of performance to revaluate their role in the development process.

She challenged women across Africa to see themselves as relevant in the quest to achieve economic, political and social development of the continent. She also urged women to seek leadership positions.

Banda, the first female President of Malawi and the second woman to hold such position in Africa, spoke in Lagos on the topic, Women in Solidarity: A New Paradigm for Inclusion at the Women’s Power Lunch, a programme organised by Murtala Muhammed Foundation (MMF), a non-profit organisation founded in memory and furtherance of the ideals of the late General Murtala Muhammed, the former Nigerian Head of State. Women’s Power Lunch is a yearly event aimed to addresses pertinent developmental issues relating to African women. The first edition featured Mrs. Graça Machel Mandela, the former first lady of South Africa and Mozambique, as keynoter.

In her words: “The theme for this edition is apt, as it provides us with opportunity not only to discuss issues that affect women, but also a platform for us to network on how to promote effective women leadership and also eliminate the barriers that limit women from being relevant in the continent.”

Banda said women are too strong to be ignored in any society and that they must, therefore, rise up and take their rightful positions, as they won’t get it on a platter of gold.

While calling for implementation of affirmative action, Banda stated there was a need to create deliberate policies to promote participation by women in government and as well improve education participation by the Girl-child.

Banda urged the women not to underestimate the powers they have and went ahead to list five ways that women leadership must be promoted in the African continent.

First, she canvassed for a deliberate policy aimed at promoting the appointment of discerning women in key leadership positions in both corporate and political settings.

Banda also called for the initiation of policies that promote a compulsory education for the girl-child. This policy, according to her, will ensure that the girl-child’s career advancement is not hindered, as the lure to marry them off at a tender age would be limited.

In addition, she canvassed for gender equality, especially, in promoting women involvement in political activities in line with the United Nations declaration. She decried the low implementation of this declaration by many African countries.

She voiced out her opinion on the current trend in Africa where women in politics are abused and scandalised a situation that has made many women to rather not stand for elective positions in the continent.

“In my view, women leadership is under attack. Many women that would love to contest for elective positions are afraid to do so for fear of being scandalised and abused by the men folk,” Banda said.

She also called for an active interest in governance by women. “If you don’t want to go through what men pass through, then you don’t want to be in politics… If you do not reserve your seat at the table, you will become the meal!”

She further called for more responsive and highly coordinated action between law and implementation on gender rights and enforcement of these rights across the continent and as well formation of more legal instruments for women’s rights.

The former Malawian leader stressed the need to end harmful traditions and vices, which are coming to the public fora. “We can use the local chiefs to stop vices particularly the hyenas.”

The hyena is a traditional practice in some remote southern regions of Malawi, which entails girls are made to have sex with a paid sex worker known as a “hyena” once they reach puberty.”
She commended the President of Rwanda for championing the promotion of women leadership globally.

Banda served as the President of the Republic of Malawi from 2012 to 2014 making her Malawi’s first female President and Africa’s second. Before assuming the Presidency, President Banda served as a member of parliament, Minister of Gender and Child Welfare, Foreign Minister, and Vice President of the Republic of Malawi. She is credited with reversing the trajectory of an ailing economy that was on the verge of collapse when she took office and initiating a series of economic reforms that increased the country’s economy growth rate from 1.8 per cent to 6.2 per cent in two years.

One of her first acts upon taking office, which signaled the direction of her administration, was her sale of the multi-million dollar presidential jet and her donation of 30 per cent of her salary to the Malawi Council for the Handicapped, an organisation that caters for individuals living with disabilities. This is only a part of the legacy that President Banda left which stands as a shimmering example to not only Malawi, but to all of Africa.

Banda strengthened civil institutions and deepened democracy by repealing a number of repressive laws that abridged civil liberties and limited press freedom.

According to Aisha Muhammed Oyebode, “a lot is already being done to advance equal opportunities and the rights of women and children in Africa, there is however a lot of grounds we are yet to cover, which requires the urgent need for women to network across geographies and occupations – to deepen our cooperation and develop new platforms for collaboration in the pursuit of our common goal of defeating patriarchy and misogyny in Africa. This is one of the goals of this initiative.”

She added that when women work together, they could generate more than enough force to shatter the barriers that hold them back in many parts of the world. These barriers according to her, take various forms as they are rooted in ill-conceived policies and retrogressive traditions that restrict female access to qualitative education.

“There is the glass barrier that keeps eminently qualified women out of the highest levels of public service and corporate governance even when their talents and competence have been proven repeatedly. There are barriers in the form of unfair standards that ensure that women are paid less than men in the workplace, and other allied practices and conventions that are designed to place the toga of inadequacy and inferiority upon womanhood,” she said.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo was at the event, which attracted women leaders and influencers from all walks of life, including government, private sector, civil society, academia/students, media and the arts.