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CULTURE-MALAWI: Young Women Leaders Rise Up To Challenges
By Frank Phiri
BLANTYRE, 9 Jul (IPS) - -Faced with high prevalence of HIV/AIDS infection,
environmental degradation and sluggish economic growth, young women
professionals in Malawi have put their heads together and intensified
efforts to bring about a major paradigm shift.
The women, under a grouping called the Young Women Leaders Network
(YWLN), want to
put fellow women in the fore of developing this impoverished southern
African state of 10 million
people, of which women make up 50 percent.
The young women professionals say they draw their inspiration from the
various socio-economic and development woes that afflict the country
resulting in women becoming the most vulnerable group.
"We realised that all our problems were similar and sought to form a
common front to confront these problems," Evelyn Mwapasa, chairperson of
YWLN told IPS in the commercial capital, Blantyre.
True to Mwapasa's assertions, Malawi's demographics are not positive.
Various local and international institutions, among them the World Bank,
place 65 per cent of the total Malawi population to be living below the one
United States dollar a day threshold.
And according to the National Aids Commission out of 845,000 people that
had been infected with the Aids causing virus, HIV about 18 per cent (152
000) are women.
The commission also estimates that the pandemic, whose initial cases were
recorded in 1985, has since then created 500 000 orphans and that 65 000
orphans were being added every year following deaths of their parents.
However, it is not only HIV/Aids that has wrecked havoc and left Malawi's
often subdued, starved and oppressed women with the awesome task of looking
after orphans and the sick.
The country's recent sluggish economic growth, worsened by the suspension
of budgetary aid by donors and closure of companies due to the snowballing
of liberalisation, has decimated incomes for women and their households
leaving them poorer than before.
Mwapasa says it is behind such a backdrop that some of the county's women
professionals thought of forming their organisation in May 2000, which is
seeking to build a critical mass of young Malawian women in leadership
positions, who can effectively contribute to the development agenda of the
country.
She says three years down the line, YWLN has shrugged off its formative
stages and is set to surprise other stakeholders who thought it was made up
of a bunch of greedy young women thirsty for power and publicity.
'Things have moved fast and we have made a lot of progress in so many
critical areas,'' says Mwapasa, who last month won the admiration of many
Malawians when she led employees in the company where she is the Chief
Executive, in a brave showdown against the sale of the company at a
giveaway price to a local Indian investor.
She says YWLN's registered membership has grown to 60 women all coming
from diverse professions who have been engaged in various outreach
programmes throughout the country.
Mwapasa says key programmes include capacity building in environmental
management, mentoring and role modelling of secondary school and college
female students, budget implementation monitoring, interactive leadership
forums at local and regional level, HIV/Aids support to the sick and orphans
and advocacy activities.
She cites input into the Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (MPRSP),
the blueprint for gaining debt relief under the Highly Indebted Poor Country
(HIPC) initiative, assistance to women village headmen in replanting trees
in areas where they have been cut down, HIV/Aids awareness to students and
relief to institutions caring for orphans whose parents have died from Aids.
Lady Village Headwoman Ida Jamali from Mdeka, a rural area 45 kilometres
east of Blantyre, is among the grassroots female leaders being paraded by
YWLN as role models to society. She has successfully mobilised her subjects
to afforest a hill that 13 years ago lay bare due to rampant deforestation
in her area.
Jamali encourages fellow women and young women leaders to take a leaf
from her determination to get things done.
''As women, we do things better because we're meticulous and always do
the best to avoid mistakes which make us subject of ridicule from men. The
confidence to stamp authority on both men and women is there, what we lack
are logistical capacities,'' she said.
Questions have, however, been raised with regards to the effectiveness
of women who have been entrusted with leadership positions and are lobbying
for the same in the corridors of policy making institutions.
Men-critics ponder that not many Malawian women are brave enough to
handle things when they get tough.
'We're not denying women assuming leadership roles, but traditionally
women here have always expected men to lead them,'' says Charles Kawerawera,
a lecturer in engineering at the Polytechnic, a constituent college of the
University of Malawi.
But Mwapasa is quick to respond. ''I myself have responded to challenge
the sale of my company at an immoral price. This has given me a lot of
strength,'' she said, in reference to the current disputed privatisation of
her company.
She says while liberalisation is inevitable, its effects on the economy
were bringing more misery than joy to women who have either lost jobs or
have helplessly seen husbands being retrenched. The result has been loss of
income and no means to support bloated families, she says.
Nellie Nyang'wa, Programme Officer for the Joint Oxfam Programme in
Malawi, agrees with Mwapasa. She says liberalisation and its heir apparent,
privatisation, must be rejected if they ignore social responsibilities of
companies towards society, particularly women.
"Privatisation must rationalise both commercial and social interests of
shareholders and consumers," she said.
Ten years after Malawi attained democratic rule, there has been a
tremendous improvement in terms of women representation at policy level.
Apart from the creation of a Gender ministry in 2001, the number of women
cabinet ministers has increased from three to eight. The number of women
Members of Parliament also shot up from four to 12 in the last general
elections in 1999. In April this year, President Bakili Muluzi, appointed
Mary Mkosi as Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi.
Currently, New Gender Minister and MP for Machinga Central in the
southern region, Alice Sumani, says the appointment of Mkosi and other women
professionals to various policy positions underscore the government's
commitment in elevating the status of women in Malawi by giving them an
opportunity to have a go at the leadership.
She adds that this commitment is in line with the goal of the Southern
African Development Community (SADC) to increase the number of women in
policy and decision-making processes to 30 per cent by the end of 2003.
On July 1 the Malawi Parliament for the first time elected a woman,
Loveness Gondwe, to the post of First Deputy Speaker. Gondwe is the MP for
the opposition Alliance for Democracy (Aford) in the western constituency of
Mzimba, a district in the northern region of Malawi. Her election follows
the vacancy created by the appointment of former Speaker, Sam Mpasu, as
minister of Commerce and Industry.
"Her appointment is testimony that government and the ruling United
Democratic Front is serious to uplift women to leadership positions. It also
shows that we men are not greedy," says Uladi Mussa, minister of Natural
Resource and Environmental Affairs who is also the Chief Whip.
"We expect other women like Gondwe to rise up and help us men to develop
the country," he said. (ENDS/IPS/AF/SA/CR/FP/SM/03)
= 07090541 ORP003
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(END/2003)
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