President urged to up quota on women

PRESIDENT Sam Nujoma has been asked to facilitate the inclusion of a minimum of 30 per cent women on the Swapo Party list as Namibia prepares for general and presidential elections.

The appeal was made by the Chairperson of the 16th SADC Parliamentary Forum, Ntlhoi Motsamai, at the opening of the forum’s five-day summit in Windhoek on Monday. Motsamai said she was appealing to President Nujoma as over the years he had demonstrated the political will to address the issue of gender equality.She said gender distribution in the membership of the forum had now grown beyond the minimum 30 per cent.”Following the admission of chairpersons of the national women’s parliamentary caucuses at the Maseru Plenary Assembly in December last year, we have now reached a 50-50 representation of men and women,” said Motsamai.She challenged other SADC organs and member states to “walk the talk”, adding that SADC stood little chance of cutting poverty by half by 2015 if it did not support gender equality “It is our hope that the next SADC summit will take stock of progress made so far with a view to finding strategies of dealing with this urgent challenge,” she said.The SADC Parliamentary Forum is a platform where SADC parliamentarians from ruling and opposition parties come together to discuss issues such as inter-parliamentary co-operation, gender, democracy and conflict resolution.Motsamai said she was appealing to President Nujoma as over the years he had demonstrated the political will to address the issue of gender equality.She said gender distribution in the membership of the forum had now grown beyond the minimum 30 per cent.”Following the admission of chairpersons of the national women’s parliamentary caucuses at the Maseru Plenary Assembly in December last year, we have now reached a 50-50 representation of men and women,” said Motsamai.She challenged other SADC organs and member states to “walk the talk”, adding that SADC stood little chance of cutting poverty by half by 2015 if it did not support gender equality “It is our hope that the next SADC summit will take stock of progress made so far with a view to finding strategies of dealing with this urgent challenge,” she said.The SADC Parliamentary Forum is a platform where SADC parliamentarians from ruling and opposition parties come together to discuss issues such as inter-parliamentary co-operation, gender, democracy and conflict resolution.