The Vice President, the SADC PF Hon. Marie Joanne Sabrina Tour;
The Vice Chairperson, RWPC Ramarosoa Emiline Rakotobe;
Honourable Members;
Her Excellency, the SADC PF Secretary General, Ms. Boemo Sekgoma;
SADC PF Secretariat;
Staff from National Parliaments in the SADC Region;
Esteemed Resource Persons;
Distinguished participants,
Good Morning, bondia, bonjour to you all lovely ladies and gentleman in attendence
I trust that you all had a safe travels from your respective countries for those of you who have recently join us to the venue of the meeting, and a peaceful sleep with beautiful dreams here in south Africa.
It is my honour and privilege to welcome you all to this meeting under the theme
“Leveraging Social Media to Advance Women Political Participation in the SADC Region.”
This meeting comes at a time when 11 countries in the SADC Region would hold their elections in this year and in 2024 as follows:
2023 Elections:
- Zimbabwe (July/August);
- Ewsatini (September);
- Madagascar (Presidential) (November / December); and
- Democratic Republic of Congo (December).
- And in 2024 Elections: would be held in
- Botswana;
- the Comoros;
- Madagascar; legislative
- Mauritius;
- Mozambique;
- Namibia and finally
- South Africa.
Honourable Members, Distinguished, participants
Elections are regarded as an indispensable root of democracy; hence, the SADC countries hold them on a regular basis. As you may all be aware, the SADC PF has been at the forefront of creating conducive environments for holdings of:
FREE, FAIR, AND CREDIBLE ELECTIONS in the SADC Region.
The Forum has been doing this through continuous review and adaptation of legal frameworks governing electoral systems and processes, based on experiences and best practices.
In order to ensure that these instruments are adhered to, the Forum has a mechanism to monitor elections through the SADC Election Observer Missions (EOM)
However, it is regrettable, Honourable Members, to note that the Forum is currently grappling to sponsor the Election Observer Missions (EOM) due to limited resources
This is a cause of concern that need our collective action to ensure that resources are mobilised for the Election Observer Missions (EOM) to discharge its mandate.
Honourable Members, Distinguished Participants,
This meeting comes after the Caucus received submissions from SADC citizens during the public hearings conducted in November, 2022 on various issues that affect women political participation in the SADC region. Submissions aimed at answering the questions arising from the following four (4) thematic areas:
- “How can citizens promote women participation in decision-making processes in the public sector at all levels?’’
- “Which measures may be put in place to increase women representation in Parliament to attain the 50 – 50 gender parity?”
- “Should budgets passed in Parliament consider and mainstream women issues?”
- “Which measures should be put in place to increase the representation of women on boards of private corporations?”
In the interest of time and cognisance of the fact that the minutes containing the key issues raised in the submissions will be considered in this meeting, I do not wish to belabour the point. However, I will give a summary of the cross-cutting salient issues raised during the public hearings.
The submissions made by the SADC citizens noted that:
- Women represented a large percentage of the world’s population, yet they were largely underrepresented in decision-making structures at various levels in both public and private sectors owing to various challenges;
- Despite the commitments by the SADC Member States through the several legal instruments to promote women political participation at all levels, there were very few women represented in parliament in comparison to their male counterparts;
- Some reasons cited for fueling gender disparities in political decision-making structures included lack of resources for the campaign process for women; lack of civic education; cultural perceptions; gender-based violence; intimidation and electoral laws and systems that worked to disadvantage women.
- There should be strong political will from member States, coupled with adequate resources to support women empowerment programmes, to enable them participate in decision-making processes in the public sector at all levels.
Honorable Members, Distinguished Participants, this meeting could not have come at a better time as its thrust is on the use of social media to enhance women political participation as one of the cures to some of the challenges presented in the above submissions. Media in general, plays very important role in disseminating information in society and can help to shape citizens opinions/views/actions on any subject matter.
However, it goes without saying that limited or biased media reporting can affect career prospects of women in politics if it continues unchecked.
Allow me to quote the Un Women’s article on Media-Women’s Leadership and Political Participation, which states that
I quote“While, ideally, the media should strive for accuracy and impartiality, in reality there are often imbalances in coverage, including in terms of women and their perspectives. Women politicians, for example, may be under-represented in news before and after elections.” unquote
In order to increase the visibility and widen the coverage of women in the mainstream media and effectively deal with negative stereotypes and responses on social media, women candidates need to be trained in dealing with the media. I would like to appreciate SADC PF Secretariat for putting this meeting together at such an opportune time which helps women parliamentarians to keep abreast with emerging political campaigns trends.
Honourable Members, Distinguished Participants, I do not wish to steal the show nor to be the fundi in this subject matter, suffice to say that the broad objective of this training is to give requisite skills to women parliamentarians on the use of social media to effectively participate in political spaces. To our esteemed Recourse Persons, it is our expectation that you would walk us through the positives and risks that come with the use of social media and how the risks can be managed. It is also our expectation that we would be exposed to various types of social media and how to use them.
Ultimately, we expect to leave this meeting well-armed for political participation through the use of social media tools as some of us will be battling over political space with our male counterparts in the coming elections.
Honourable Members, this is an extremely important training which I believe has a massive potential to ignite and equip any MP, in spite of their background, into effectively participating in political space. I can attest to the fact that many of us here may not be familiar with the effective use of social media to advance political participation. I therefore, urge fellow parliamentarians to take this opportunity to learn, internalise issues and actively participate during the course of this training, bearing in mind that we should come up with emphatic resolutions to advance women political participation at the end of this meeting.
As I round off my remarks, let me welcome you all once again to this important meeting. Allow me to say to our esteemed Resource Persons a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and we all know that the first step of a child is not the biggest and fastest, so let us take is easy in all tolerance and patience when using technical jargon and make sure no one is left behind in this capacity development effort.
I thank you.
