Female councillors get a boost

Concerned with lack of funding towards the Women Councillors Caucus, the Gender and Justice Unit (GJU) has donated gadgets to facilitate their work.

Speaking during the donation in Mangochi on Tuesday, GJU director Sarai Chisala-Tempelhoff said the donation follows an evaluation into the work of the female councillors which highlighted a number of disparities.

She said: “We did a rapid needs assessment to find out the critical areas of councillors, the challenges they face as well as the gaps they have.”

The event took place on the sidelines of a training workshop for women councillors on gender responsive budgeting and monitoring to strengthen their role as guardians of women and girls.

“We also did a training for the councillors on information and communications technology. Covid-19 has forced all of us to go online and not all of us have access to all the spaces out there.

“Since the councillors cannot hold physical meetings, we thought that we can support with these tablets,” explained Chisala-Tempelhoff.

The donation is part of GJU’s two-year programme funded by Osisa in which the organisation is implementing projects on leadership and legal empowerment of women parliamentarians and councillors, among others.

In an interview, Women Councillors Caucus vice-chairperson Esther Sagawa said the donation will support their work as they adapt to changes imposed by Covid-19.

Currently, there are 66 women councillors out of 460 wards nationwide, representing 15 percent.