Africa-Press – Botswana. Former Minister of Health, Ms Joy Phumaphi has been appointed chairperson of the National Gender Commission in the Ministry of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture.
Presenting Ms Phumaphi Tuesday at the launch, Minister of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture Mr Tumiso Rakgare described her as ‘a diamond that we have released to the world’.
Currently, the executive secretary of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) since 2010, Ms Phumaphi has served various international organisations such as the Clinton Health Access Initiative, World Bank Group, World Health Organisation, and Swedish Institute for Public Administration (SIPU) International among others.
“You are assuming a critical role that all Batswana, especially our women and girls, have hope for. Being the National Gender Commission chair is a challenging yet fulfilling assignment.
With your global experience and expertise, you will successfully lead the institution,” Mr Rakgare said.
Mr Rakgare highlighted major issues that the commission should look into, such as high prevalence of gender-based violence, low representation of women in leadership, especially political positions and integration of small and medium women entrepreneurs into the mainstream economy.
He stated that the commission should deal with patriarchy, which was the stronghold of inequality, including amongst women and girls as well as young people and persons with disabilities.
Mr Rakgare assured Batswana that his ministry would advocate for the enhancement of women’s human rights with the support of the commission to make the desired progress.
He said government had set up structures at national and local levels to ensure progress.
“Amongst these is the National Gender Commission, which is mainly responsible for advising government on gender and development issues as guided by the National Policy on Gender and Development and Regional, Continental and International Gender Instruments,” he said.
He pointed out that government had made progress in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment, signing the protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (The Maputo Protocol) as well as passing of the Bail Bill in November 2023.
For her part, Ms Phumaphi said the commission had a lot to do as the rate of gender-based violence in Botswana was alarming.
She said the commission would monitor implementation of the National Policy on Gender and Development.
“These important functions are enabled by tasking the commission, liaising with gender department and other stakeholders in government and community.
We as a commission see this as an opportunity to ensure that effective programmes are developed across the board by all sectors, to support development of appropriate strategies and mechanisms that will enhance the mandate,” said Ms Phumaphi.
She noted that there was gap in leadership among women.
She referenced financial literacy among female-headed households in Botswana as a concern, saying such households were economically poor, with SMMEs dominated by women, but lacking financial support.
She observed that Botswana had a low representation of women in political roles.
She said in 2019, of the 210 candidates for Parliament, only 12 were women and just three were voted in, with four being specially elected members.
Ms Phumaphi said women continued to regress across all sectors, such as education, where the number of girl children tended to be satisfying at basic education level, but regressed at tertiary level.
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