Data from UN Women show that as of 10 January 2024, there are 26 countries where 28 women serve as Heads of State and/or Government. The world body said at the current rate, gender equality in the highest positions of power will not be reached for another 130 years since just 15 countries have a woman Head of State, and 16 countries have a woman Head of Government.
First-time compiled data by UN Women show that women represent 22.8 per cent of Cabinet members heading Ministries, leading a policy area as of 1 January 2023. There are only 13 countries in which women hold 50 per cent or more of the positions of Cabinet Ministers leading policy areas.
The five most commonly held portfolios by women Cabinet Ministers are Women and gender equality, followed by Family and Children affairs, Social inclusion and development, Social protection and social security, and Indigenous and minority affairs.
In national parliaments, UN Women’s data indicate that only 26.5 per cent of parliamentarians in single or lower houses are women, up from 11 per cent in 1995. Only six countries have 50 per cent or more women in parliament in single or lower houses: Rwanda (61 per cent), Cuba (53 per cent), Nicaragua (52 per cent), Mexico (50 per cent), New Zealand (50 per cent), and the United Arab Emirates (50 per cent).
A further 23 countries have reached or surpassed 40 per cent, including 13 countries in Europe, six in Africa, three in Latin America and the Caribbean, and one in Asia. Globally, there are 22 States where women account for less than 10 per cent of parliamentarians in single or lower houses, including one lower chamber with no women at all. UN Women believes estimates that at the current rate of progress, gender parity in national legislative bodies will not be achieved before 2063.
Women hold 36 per cent of parliamentary seats in Latin America and the Caribbean and make up 32 per cent of parliamentarians in Europe and Northern America. In sub-Saharan Africa, there are 26 per cent of women legislators, followed by Eastern and South-Eastern Asia with 22 per cent, Oceania with 20 per cent, Central and Southern Asia with 19 per cent, and Northern Africa and Western Asia with 18 per cent of women Members of Parliament.
The case of Africa
In Africa specifically, Africa.com has compiled a list of women who have held or currently hold the position of Head of State or Government since 1970.
They include, in the order of duration served:
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia, January 2006 – January 2018
Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, Namibia, March 2015 – present
Prime Minister Luísa Dias Diogo, Mozambique, August 2004 – January 2010
President Sahle-Work Zewde, Ethiopia, October 2018 – present
President Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, Mauritius, June 2015 – March 2018
President Catherine Samba-Panza, Central African Republic, January 2014 – March 2016
President Joyce Hilda Banda, Malawi, April 2012 – May 2014
Prime Minister Maria das Neves Ceita Baptista de Sousa, São Tomé and Príncipe, October 2002 – September 2004
Prime Minister Mame Madior Boye, Senegal, March 2001 – November 2002
Prime Minister Rose Christiane Ossouka Raponda, Gabon, July 2020 – present
Prime Minister Victoire Sidémého Dzidudu Dogbé Tomegah, Togo, September 2020 – present
Prime Minister Elizabeth Domitien, Central African Republic, January 1975 – April 1976
Prime Minister Cissé Mariam Kaïdama Sidibé, Mali, April 2011 – March 2012
President Samia Suluhu Hassan, Tanzania, March 2021 – present
Prime Minister Aminata Touré, Senegal, September 2013 – July 2014
Prime Minister Maria do Carmo Trovoada Pires de Carvalho Silveira, São Tomé and Príncipe, June 2005 – April 2006
Prime Minister and President Agathe Uwilingiyimana, Rwanda, July 1993 – April 1994
Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja, Uganda, June 2021 – present
Prime Minister and President Sylvie Kinigi, Burundi, Prime Minister from July 1993 – October 1993 and President from October 1993 – February 1994
President Agnès Monique Ohsan Bellepeau, Mauritius, March 2012 – July 2012 and May 2015 – June 2015
Prime Minister Najla Bouden Romdhane, Tunisia, October 2021 – present
President Rose Francine Rogombé, Gabon, June 2009 – October 2009.
On both the global and African stages, these women stood or are standing on the shoulders of brave female pioneers who pave the way for them.
According to Wikipedia, Khertek Anchimaa-Toka was the first woman ever elected as the head of a country. She became the chairwoman of the presidium in the Tuvan People’s Republic in 1940. The first woman to become the prime minister of a country was Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon, which is now known as Sri Lanka. She led her party to victory in the July 1960 general election. Isabel Perón of Argentina was the first woman to serve as the president of a country. She became president in July 1974 after her husband’s death. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir of Iceland was the first woman to be elected president of a country. She won the presidential election in 1980 and served for 16 years, making her the longest-serving female head of state in history. Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan was the first democratically elected female prime minister of a Muslim majority country. She won the 1988 general election and served two terms. Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh holds the record for being the longest-serving female leader of a country. She has been the prime minister of Bangladesh for over 20 years, serving from 1996 to 2001 and then again since January 2009. Barbados is the only republic where both the head of state and head of government are women. In Honduras and the Marshall Islands, the female President serves as both the head of state and government.
A case for women leadership
Since Africa gained her independence from colonialists, her nations have been dominated by male Heads of State and Government, most of whom have superintended wars, corruption, poverty, disease, malnutrition, and mismanagement; or either suffered or benefitted from coups, dictatorships, overstaying in office, and plundering of state resources. Since the late 1950s when the Gold Coast (now Ghana) opened the door of independence for Sub-Saharan Africa, the story has been decades of gloom and doom.
According to the President of the Africa Development Bank, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, Africa has some 431 million out of the continent’s 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty, a number that has increased with an additional 84 million people since the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. South Asia and East Asia and the Pacific had roughly 50% and 2/3 of their population in extreme poverty in 1990 and saw significant declines to 9% and 1%, respectively in 2019. Sub-Saharan Africa, which had 50% of its population in extreme poverty in 1990 just like South Asia, saw it decline only to 35% by 2019. In addition to the endemic poverty, the continent has also been plagued by senseless ethnoreligious wars and conflict, such as the 1994 Rwandan Genocide in which Hutus massacred almost one million Tutsis and Moderate Hutus. The continent has seen many of its nations run as a family property in dynastic fashion. We have the Bongos of Gabon – recently deposed in the latter part of 2023), Gnassingbes of Togo, Nguemas of Equatorial Guinea, Debys of Chad, to name a few. Their countries were and have been their family property for decades, some as long as 56 years in the case of the Bongos. They looted and are still looting their countries’ resources for their private coffers. They are among the most corrupt on the continent’s league table of the corrupt. Human rights abuses have also been witnessed under such corrupt and dictatorial leadership. All these ills of Africa have taken place under male leaders. Hardly did any of these ills take place under the few female leaders that Africa has had. Perhaps, it is time for Africans to realise the need to advocate more female participation in national leadership. Women are mothers who feel for children, girls, their fellow women, the aged, the vulnerable and the lowest of the low in society. These instincts help them to shape social and economic policies toward benefitting the ordinary citizen rather than the few elite and rich. They are less likely to be as corrupt as their male counterparts as a result of these motherly instincts and fellow-feeling. That is not to say women can’t or won’t be corrupt when they get the chance. But the likelihood is way on the low side in comparative terms. Women are less likely to commit scarce national resources to senseless wars which they know would affect their fellow women, as well as children, girls, the aged and vulnerable, in the worst forms compared to men. Because of their motherliness, women are more likely to sink public funds into development projects in agriculture, health and education which will impact the lives of their fellow women greatly. They are less likely to impose themselves on their nations through coups or become dictators who rule with an iron fist. Rather, they are more likely to ensure gender parity in society; empower women, who, mostly, in Africa, run the homes; remove hurdles that frustrate women from starting small businesses, promote projects that benefit the vulnerable; fight cultural practices that are inimical to the health of girls and women, such as female genital mutilation, dishonourable widowhood rights, unfair inheritance and spousal laws, among others. If the large majority of African homes are run by women, who have proven, for centuries, to be good at it since they often do so much with the very few resources available to them in their environments, then it makes sense to want to have many more women at the helm of national affairs to replicate that maternal wonder on a larger scale for the benefit and greater good of the larger population. A lot of Africa’s problems could be solved if women were running their countries’ affairs.
