State's gender agenda is uplifting women

As we observe International Women’s Day, it can be argued that following the adoption of the new Constitution in 2010, women have played a greater role in national leadership, social and economic development.

There are now more women in political leadership, private firms and entrepreneurial activities than ever before. There is now near-parity between boys and girls in primary educational institutions while the number of female students at tertiary colleges and universities is almost overtaking that of male students.

Traditional practices and ideas about the roles of girls and women in society have often restricted their contributions to national development in Kenya and other African countries. Many outdated traditions often serve to hold women back from contributing to important development goals, especially in the areas of economic growth, nutrition and food security.

While women in Kenya are still considerably under-represented in decision-making positions, they are now catching up fast, with improved access to education, land, and employment.

It is a fact that many of the Kenyan women living in rural areas still spend long hours collecting water and firewood, cooking and doing other household and farm chores, thus interfering with school attendance and leaving them with little time to earn money or engage in other productive activities, but this is changing. The untapped potential of women and girls is now gaining much greater attention in Kenya. The country’s current Constitution provides a powerful framework for addressing gender equality.

It marks a new beginning for women’s rights in Kenya, seeking to remedy the traditional exclusion of women and promote their full involvement in every aspect of growth and development.

When Kenyan women have the freedom to reach their potential, all Kenyan families and communities will grow stronger.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAid) has provided major assistance to the process of empowering women to exercise their rights as guaranteed by the Constitution.

Our partners have brought the perspectives of women and girls and their full participation to the front line; and men and boys are important partners in this effort.

Their activities have supported the creation of safe societies where women and girls can live free from violence, providing care and treatment services for victims of gender-based violence and strengthening women’s access to resources and opportunities that will allow them to share more broadly in the benefits of economic growth.

Other activities include increasing the participation of women in decision and policy-making at all levels, ensuring women have a seat at the table in peace-building, conflict prevention and mitigation and narrowing gender gaps in education and learning.

We are as a nation strongly engaged in creating awareness and sensitizing women nationally through various established institutions and development partners so as to entrench women empowerment to play a leading role in realizing the provisions of equality contained in the relatively new Constitution.

Similarly, the Government is now playing a leading role and has formulated policies and created a number of institutions that seek to empower women and provide them with the necessary facilities and funding for entrepreneurship.

One of these public institutions is the Women’s Enterprise Fund (WEF), a semi-autonomous Government agency under my ministry. It provides accessible and affordable credit to support women to start or expand business for wealth and employment creation. The Fund also provides business support services such as capacity building, marketing, promotion of linkages and infrastructure support.

Four years after its establishment, WEF’s commitment to the empowerment of women in Kenya was actualised in 2011, when the Fund emerged the winner of the Millennium Development Goals Award for Outstanding Achievement in Promoting Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment.

I am happy to note that WEF has cumulatively disbursed Sh7.51 billion to 59,824 self-help women groups since inception, benefitting 1,158,328 individual women across the country. It now boasts an average loan repayment rate of 87 per cent nationally.

Further, women are accessing the 30 per cent public procurement preferential reservation, which also benefits the youth and persons with disability. My ministry is working to ensure that these target groups are the sole beneficiaries of this initiative.

This is in realisation that resources in women’s hands have a range of positive outcomes for human capital and capabilities within a household.

Research findings also suggest a strong instrumental rationale for ensuring women’s participation in processes of growth. And that access to economic resources by women often improves distributional dynamics within the household.

The Women’s Enterprise Fund now leads the way in promoting public awareness and accountability, which is part of its constitutional mandate. The Fund was established eight years ago to champion the themes of poverty reduction, gender equality and women’s empowerment mainly through enterprise development. The Fund is a flagship project in the Vision 2030 development road map.

Kenyan women now appreciate that Vision 2030 must be personalised and owned by each one of them by becoming active participants and consumers of services to positively transform their lives.