Power, Gender and Social Change in AfricaRaj Bardouille, Margaret Grieco Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009 M03 26 - 359 pages Gender 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
... constitution, and one woman MP was largely responsible for the adoption of a gender quota for local elections ... constitutional negotiations such that South Africa too has one of the most gender-progressive constitutions in the world ...
... constitution in 1992 that proscribed a one-party political system and commenced the transition to a multiparty political system. Rwanda's transition came on the heels of an aborted democratic opening, war, and the genocide of up to one ...
... constitution institutionalized the quota system by providing for a number of reserved seats in the national parliament equal to the number of districts in the country.7 The women MPs from the district seats are now elected from all ...
... constitution 48.8 percent of members elected to the Chamber of Deputies were women, meaning that women won many more than just the seats reserved for women (Longman 2006, 141). In Tanzania, a small number of 'special' seats for women ...
... the methods by which parties select women to their reserved seats vary and are not necessarily included in party constitutions. According to Ruth Meena (2004, Bauer: Electoral Gender Quotas in Eastern and Southern Africa 17.