The newly elected Ward Development Committee (WDC) members in Mazi-a-tuwa and Chipangali wards in Eastern Province, have been implored to embrace Gender and Social inclusion in order to ensure that all categories of people in the community benefit from the developmental programmes.
Speaking at the Chipangali Town Council Orientation Workshop for WDCs, Chipangali Town Council Public Relations Officer, Agness Banda, noted that women, youths and persons with disabilities were key beneficiaries of the developmental projects followed by other community members.
Ms Banda however expressed concern at the low representation of women in the committees.
She said only a small number has been elected to the WDC in the district which she said was not a good picture especially with the government’s focus of advancing the gender agenda in national programmes across the country.
“This shows that the district is far from pushing the national agenda of 30 percent inclusion of women representation in decision making. It is upon us as a local authority to begin interrogating the reasons as to why this is so” Ms Banda said.
“The Local Authority wants to see more representation of women in decision making positions not just for the numbers, but to test their leadership and see what they are able to do. It is something we need to speak to as a national policy”, she added.
Ms Banda further said the aspect of grants under the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) is under the theme “Youth, Women and Community empowerments”.
ZANIS
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