Rwanda gender equality praised in Davos

  • Breaking
  • 24/01/2015

Rwanda has been held up as a beacon for gender equality as the business and political elite as the World Economic Forum in Switzerland underlined the importance of achieving parity in ending poverty.

The central African country, which two decades ago was struggling to recover from genocide that claimed 800,000 lives, became the first country in 2008 to have a parliament dominated by women.

Today, female lawmakers make up 64 percent of parliament, outperforming the world average of one in five.

"In 20 years, so much can happen in a country because of leadership," said UN Women head Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka at the forum in the Swiss city of Davos.

"The culture in Rwanda is not different from other parts of Africa. But people take the cue from the leader.

"If you send the right message, people do change," said Mlambo-Ngcuka, former deputy president of South Africa.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame said his government made a conscious decision to push for the participation of women in the country's reconstruction following genocide.

"During the process of liberation and cleaning up the mess after the genocide, the first thing to come to our minds is how to bring everyone in the country to participate in the kind of change we want in the country.

"There you have to bring in women as well... we thought that in our policies and politics we need to involve everybody," he said.

A quota of 30 percent was put in place for parliament that eventually led to women dominating.

Philanthrophist Melinda Gates drew the link between the role played by women in slashing child mortality in Rwanda.

"President Paul Kagame's country has the steepest decline in childhood deaths in the world," she told the Davos forum.

Rwanda's child-mortality rate more than halved in the five years between 2005 and 2010.

AFP

source: newshub archive