Africa-Press – Tanzania. President Samia has announced her intention to disintegrate the current Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children (MoHCDEC) to form a new ministry which will deal with gender and social welfare.
President Samia disclosed this on Thursday during a launching ceremony of the National Advisory Committee on implementation of the Generation Equality Forum on economic, justice and rights at the Jakaya Kikwete Convention Centre in Dodoma.
The Head of State assured the public that the move will intensify coordination, supervision, assessment and follow-up on various policies and implementation of strategic plans that would empower women economically and achieve gender parity.
“The health sector alone is taking up a bigger picture in this Ministry [Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children (MoHCDEC)] than the rest of the sectors.
“Minus Health, if we assemble the remaining sections; policy, management, law and other issues can go smoothly…,” the President said and concluded: “This is my decision.”
Read more from Katare Mbashiru in Dodoma
In fulfilling her commitment and aspiration to achieve gender equality, the Head of State said she would advise her Zanzibar counterpart, Dr Hussein Mwinyi to do the same so as the goals are met in both sides of the union.
On June 8, 2021 when addressing all women in the country at a meeting held Dodoma, the Head of State directed the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children to establish the National Advisory Committee for Generation Equality Forum which would advise the president on issues of gender and women economic empowerment.
on Thursday, President Samia launched the 25-member committee led by former cabinet minister Angela Kairuki. The committee which features members from both sides of the union comprises of experts from different professions.
Speaking at the launching event, which was also attended by Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa and UN Women Hodan Addou, the president said although the government was implementing different plans and programmes to empower women economically, still women were lagging behind compared to their male counterparts.
“Women constitute 50 percent of the country’s human resource and in the world statistics depicts that even in the world 50 percent of the workforce were women and if they are utilized well they can generate about 28tri/- per year,” she said.
She added that the country was yet to put up encouraging development plans for women and even those which were currently present were yet to be implemented well, that is why she decided to separate the ministry of health from Gender and Women Development issues.
“ In the current ministry, the Health sector seems to have swallowed the remaining sector, therefore, my decision is to separate it in order to establish a new ministry which will deal with gender, women development and other issues so that laws, policies and regulations to empower women can be properly enforced,” she said.
At the event, Mr Majaliwa said the establishment of the advisory committee on Generation Equality Forum and it’s official launching was yet another milestone for the country in looking for solutions on the challenges facing women and girls in the country.
He said the government as full committed to ensuring that the joint strategic plan for the economic justice and rights of women was implemented to meet the country’s expectation.
“I call upon all stakeholders including all sectorial ministries, Civil Society Organisations, Private Sector and Development Partners to join this initiative to meet the desired goals,” Said the Prime Minister.
Generation Equality Forum (GEF) is an international initiative that seems to accelerate implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995) which envisaged attaining gender transformation in different economic spheres.
As a global initiative, GEF requires multi-sectoral stakeholder partnerships within the country which include the government, private sector, academia and civil society Organisations in achieving gender equality.
Tanzania is one of the participating member states in the generation equality global campaign convened by UN Women dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women held in Paris France between June 30 and July 02, 2021. At the meeting, the country was represented by Vice Presudent, Dr Philip Mpango.
The Paris platform had created key action coalitions to be executed within a timeframe of five years 2021-2026.
On Thursday, the minister of the the defunct Ministry of Health Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, Dr Dorothy Gwajima said Tanzania adopted to implement the thematic area on economic justice and rights as a vehicle towards the realization of gender equality following a decision by President Samia who committed to champion on her aspiration to achieve gender equality.
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