Power, Gender and Social Change in AfricaGender plays a hugely significant and too often under-considered role in predicting how accessible resources such as education, wage-based employment, physical and mental health care, adequate nutrition and housing will be to an individual or community. According to a 2001 World Bank report titled Engendering Development—Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources, and Voice, enormous disparities exist between men and women in terms of basic rights and the power to determine the future, both in Africa and around the globe. A better understanding of the links between gender, public policy and development outcomes would allow for more effective policy formulation and implementation at many levels. This book, through its discussion of the challenges, achievements and lessons learned in efforts to attain gender equality, sheds light on these important issues. The book contains chapters from an interdisciplinary group of scholars, including sociologists, economists, political scientists, scholars of law, anthropologists, historians and others. The work includes analysis of strategic gender initiatives, case studies, research, and policies as well as conceptual and theoretical pieces. With its format of ideas, resources and recorded experiences as well as theoretical models and best practices, the book is an important contribution to academic and political discourse on the intricate links between gender, power, and social change in Africa and around the world. |
From inside the book
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CHAPTER ONE TAKING THE FAST TRACK TO PARLIAMENT: Comparing
Electoral Gender Quotas in Eastern and Southern Africa Gretchen Bauer
Introduction During the past fifteen years large numbers of women have entered
parliaments ...
For purposes of comparison, it is interesting to note that the percentages of
women in national parliaments in several ... Women comprise 10.8 percent of
Swaziland's parliament (since 2003), 11.7 percent of Lesotho's (since 2002), and
12.7 ...
In east Africa the mechanisms used to gender parliaments have differed from
those in southern Africa. ... women were introduced during that election by
expanding the Ugandan parliament to include extra seats for women only (one
from each ...
Since the political transition in the early 1990s Tanzania has continued to set
aside seats for women; 15 percent of parliamentary seats were reserved in 1995,
increased to 20 percent for the 2000 election, and women were to comprise “not
...
Further, these party-based quotas were not introduced until women had already
acquired around 25 percent of seats in parliament, a result of socio-economic
developments over time. 2 In a new study, Tripp (forthcoming) finds that the most
...