What domestic/national factors best explain the rise of women in parliament in sub-Saharan Africa?

Clearly there has been a rise in the number of women seeking parliamentary seats and actually winning seats in national parliaments across Africa. This by no means implies that there is gender parity in politics in Africa, nor does it necessarily mean that women are well represented in national parliaments across the continent. There remain several obstacles that women must still overcome in order to win parliamentary seats. Nevertheless, the rise in the number of women members of parliaments from South Africa to Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania, and Namibia among others is certain and it is possible that these numbers may continue to rise. A number of factors help explain this rise because they act as facilitative forces which provide women with the means to offset barriers to their entry into parliament.

To the extent that women have not been represented in parliaments in substantial numbers, research shows that women’s entry into parliament depends on their ability to overcome obstacles in their paths to parliament including: the point of deciding to seek office, party primaries (nominations) and at the voter election phase. That there has been a rise in the number of African women entering parliament means that successful women have managed to offset at least some of the obstacles associated with these phases in parliamentary recruitment. I enumerate some of them below and would like to hear additional factors from your comments too.

• The democratization process in the 1990s stands as a moment in history that ushered in a new momentum which women across the continents took up as they mobilized to support women’s entry into their respective national parliaments. Part of the rise in the numbers of women in national parliaments can be attributed to dividends for women resulting from these mobilization efforts.
• Related to the democratization movements, the women’s movement in many African countries called upon women to seek electoral seats and thereby re-socialized capable and potential women to see politics as an option and to link their experiences to seeking parliamentary seats. This increased the number of women running for parliamentary seats and subsequently the potential chances of women winning seats – particularly when they contest winnable seats.
• In some African countries, women have sought and gained party support for female candidates (favorable policies), as well as negotiated to institute electoral systems that favor female entry into parliament. Subsequently, some African countries have adopted quota system for women or % of seats reserved for women which has proved key in the entry of women to parliament in places such as South Africa, Rwanda and Uganda among others.
• Culturally, a strong tradition of leadership and community work among women in Africa including women’s organizations and grassroots women’s movements has allowed some women to tap into skills associated with political leadership, but even more particularly offered occasion for female candidates to build a strong support base among women as voters for female candidates (This in spite of contrary arguments that women work against women candidates).
• Women’s achievements in other sectors such as business, the professions have also provided women with resources associated with political power – connections, exposure, and so on - which facilitates their search for political power.
• Further, the increasing number of female parliamentarians means that women now have some power of incumbency which they can use to retain their parliamentary seats, and which provides a good number of role models for potential female parliamentarians to emulate and from whose experience prospective female aspirants can learn the rules of politics.
• Lastly, for African women, the international donor agencies, particularly as part of their support for the democratization movements in the 1990s, has provided funds aimed at supporting women in politics. This of course follows from the fact that ‘women in decision-making’ is part of the critical areas of concern identified in the Beijing Platform for Action as well as part of the project on good governance. Some women (I stress that only some women) have been able to tap into these resources to support their campaigns. Such resources have allowed national and other women’s organizations to access funds which they use to support female candidates in one way or another, with varying degrees of effectiveness for female candidates. Among such support activities are:

  a. Production of literature on campaign strategies and other literature relevant to women running for office
  b. Training of female candidates
  c. Civic education (the variant that support female candidature) to improve social attitudes towards female candidates.

Edith Miguda
Fellow at the Centre for Women’s Intercultural Leadership at Saint Mary’s College