UN, AU lauds Ethiopia’s gender-balanced cabinet

Senior United Nations (UN) and African Union (AU) officials have applauded the gender-balanced cabinet that Ethiopia’s reformist Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has announced.

In a cabinet reshuffle earlier this week, he announced the cutting down of his cabinet from 28 ministries to 20 and named ten women to key ministries.

UN Women’s executive director and former South Africa’s deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka has called it a historic decision that should be replicated across the continent.

The Secretary-General’s Special Advisor on Africa Bience Gawanas has echoed Mlambo-Ngcuka’s sentiment.

“It is important to know that when we are talking about gender parity issues, we are not talking about just the numbers, we are talking about the participation of women in decision-making because we have got characteristics, we’ve got certain issues that we can put on the table so any achievement in terms of promoting women, whether politically or economically, should be applauded.”

“I happen to be at the AU when we already achieved gender parity at the commission where we were five-five and we came into the UN right at the time that the Secretary General also committed himself to gender parity and we have achieved it again at the senior level, so what has happened in Ethiopia and what has happened in Rwanda, including my own country Namibia, we are a little bit behind, but this has to be applauded. I would fully support any move to include more and more women in decision-making because it can only shape the agenda for the world and for the continent.”

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development CEO, Ibrahim Mayaki says while this is fast becoming a trend in Africa, it is also critical for development.

“Rwanda did it before Ethiopia and it is a strong trend now in Africa to have this parity. Point number two: 80% of the food we eat in the continent is produced by small-scale farmers. The majority of these small-scale farmers are women so imagine if we empower these small scale farmers, Africa would not only be self-sufficient in terms of food but Africa would tackle the challenge of the lack of food that will exist globally in the world in the next 30 years. Point number 3: whenever we increase the rate of education of girls, it’s the best way to fight malnutrition. So these are very concrete examples that show that the emancipation and the empowerment of women is the future to go if we want to really reach development targets.”