Source:allAfrica.com
Dar es Salaam — Women in Tanzania, like their counterparts in most other parts of the world, are winning the battle to close the gender gap in health and education, but they are still hugely discriminated against in politics and widely sidelined in ownership and management of businesses.

According to a recent World Economic Forum (WEF) report, the progress made by women globally regarding closing the gender gap with men in the recent past in various aspects of life is being frustrated by mostly their failure to get a firm foot in the political and business doors.

Tanzania's shoddy showing in the report's Gender Gap Index (GGI) is largely due to poor representation in lawmaking, senior public positions, government and corporate sector. The WEF Global Gender Gap 2011 report shows that the country is mostly let down and scores the least marks in the ranking of having had a female head of state in the last 50 years.

Out of the 135 countries surveyed in the new GGI, only 43 of them are on record to have had the top national job being bestowed on a woman. The WEF specifically notes in the report that Brazil moved from position 85 to 82 due to the fast rise in the country's incomes and after Ms Dilma Rousseff's election as president.

"A system where women are not represented at the highest levels is both an unequal and inefficient system," said WEF founder Klaus Schwab and report co-author Saadia Zahidi said.

The Global Gender Gap Report's index assesses 135 countries, representing more than 93 per cent of the world's population, on how well resources and opportunities are divided amongst male and female populations. The report measures the size of the gender inequality gap in four areas: economic participation and opportunity; education attainment; political empowerment; and health and survival.

The report's index scores can be interpreted as the percentage of the gap that has been closed between women and men.

Commenting on the rankings and Tanzania's performance, the chairperson of the Tanzania Private Sector Foundation, Ms Esther Mkwizu, acknowledged the country's unconvincing efforts to bring gender equality but said the Tanzania fares much better than most of her peers in Africa. Tanzania's 59 global ranking in the GGI makes it number seven in sub-Saharan Africa and number three in the East African Community behind Burundi and Uganda.

Ms Mkwizu said, among other things, the country was now witnessing increased participation of women in entrepreneurship activities. However, she noted that women were still lagging behind in the economic field since they largely operate in the informal sector and engage in micro-businesses.

According to her, the major challenge to women economic empowerment was in accessing loans from banks because most of them lack collateral. She said the other major areas of gender inequalities included in top political leadership and equitable representation in public offices that continue to be dominated by men.

"A world where women make up less than 20 per cent of the global decision-makers is a world that is missing a huge opportunity for growth and ignoring an untapped reservoir of potential," noted Mr Schwab, founder and chairman of the World Economic Forum.

Globally, women hold less than 20 per cent of key national positions, the World Economic Forum notes in the latest global gender review. Less than 20 per cent of ministers and national MPs are women, said the report. Currently, there are about 20 elected female heads of state and government.

According to the report, a fifth of the countries surveyed have mandated female company board representation and 30 per cent have mandated political participation.

On political empowerment, where Tanzania is ranked 30 in the world, the country has managed to close the gender gap by 26 per cent. The scores for women in parliament and women in ministerial positions are 0.56 and 0.36 respectively and the respective ranking in these two areas for Tanzania in the world are positions 15 and 31.

When the GGI was introduced in 2006, Tanzania had managed to close the political empowerment gender gap by 18 per cent, which was the same ratio the following year. The score improved to 20 per cent in 2008 and 2009, before climbing to 22 per cent last year.

According to Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP), credible steps have been taken in the country since the Beijing Declaration of 1995 in order to promote equality and justice in leadership, politics and decision making processes. The feminist group says driving that agenda requires capable and committed women leaders who will lead the fight against all forms of discrimination against women and men.

On the economic participation and opportunity category, Tanzania has managed to reduce inequality between men and women by over 60 per cent in all variables except on legislators, senior officials and manager, where the score is 20 per cent. Tanzania is ranked number four in the world on labour force participation, missing the equality level by 0.03 percentage points.

The score for wage equality for similar work is 68 per cent while for estimated earned income is 67 per cent. Tanzania has managed to close the gender gap in the number of professional workers by 61 per cent.

In 2006, it was ranked number one in the world in the economic participation index with a score of 0.809. In the following year when it slipped to position four, the level of reducing the gender cap fell to 78 per cent. The country's global ranking on the economic participation front then fell 49 places to position 52 in 2009 and it was ranked at position 57 and 63 in 2010 and this year respectively. Tanzania managed to reduce inequality between men and women during the three years by 68 per cent, 67 per cent and 65 per cent respectively.

Speaking during the commemoration of this year's International Family Day, Community Development, Women and Children minister Sophia Simba challenged Tanzanians to recognise and honour the contribution of women in improving family welfare and national development. She noted that the government would continue with its efforts to increase the capacity of women to generate income, attain education, and access loans, she called on them to be self committed and confident in productive activities as well as leadership.

According to the WEF report, Tanzania has managed to close the inequality gap in two areas, which are enrolment in primary education and the healthy life expectancy, which is 45 years for both men and women. The overall index scores for education attainment, and health and survival are 0.87 and 0.96 respectively.

Tanzania was ranked number one in the world in primary school enrolment and sex ratio at birth where it has managed to close the gender gap by 94 per cent. According to the report, Tanzania is ranked at position 59 out of the 135 countries assessed on this year's Gender Gap Index (GGI), compared to position 66 in 2010 when the surveyed countries were 134.

When the first GGI was published in 2006, Tanzania was ranked at positions 24 and then 34 the following year, out of 115 and 128 countries respectively. Its performance ratios on equality between men and women further slipped in the following two years to positions 38 and 73 when there were 134 ranked countries.

The executive director of the Tanzania Media Women Association, Ms Ananilea Nkya, said the new constitution should provide solutions to all the gender discriminations currently prevalent in the country. According to her, the mother law should ensure that the country's ownership and distribution system for resources provides equal opportunities for both gender groups.

The view was shared by her counterpart at TGNP, Ms Usu Mallya, who also called for the overhauling of the political representation system to empower more women in positions of strategic decision-making bodies and institutions.

"Women are not considered when decisions are made, particularly in formulating ways of addressing their sufferings...that has resulted from existing inequalities," she said. "The gap between the haves and have-nots is still wide and many women are grouped as poor...This has been largely due to the way resources in this country are owned and distributed."

• Tanzania