Banda Harps On Supporting Women Leaders In Africa

Following a strong af
firmation that women’s role in the developmental process in a nation’s polity cannot be over-emphasised,  the former Malawian President, Dr Joyce Banda, has identified the need to promote and support women leaders in Africa. Speaking at the 2016 women’s power lunch organised by Murtala Muhammed Foundation in Lagos recently, Dr. Banda illustrated her major contributions during her tenure as Malawi President through the appointment of deserving women into strategic positions, in addition to formulating policies to remove unfair barriers for women to rise to the top.
Dr. Banda who believes that a support for the women in leadership position brings an open-door to women’s development, enumerated her achievement for women as a president to include: raising a foundation that relentlessly helped women in Malawi to break from the yoke of poverty by initiating girl-child education, maternal health care and child mortality, confidence for leadership roles and others not excluding rights of women in business to have income and control it, as well as right to self control for HIV infection.
She urged women to support each other in faith and in kind to be able to achieve objectives, stating that although adequate support from both genders is what is required to sustain the empowerment of women, nevertheless, more support from the women is imperative.
Meanwhile, Dr Banda also used the occasion to encourage African women to be more resilient in politics inspite of all odds as she pointed out that name-calling in politics and scandals usually experienced by women aspiring for elective positions are not exclusively for women, but for both genders, hence must not be considered a gender marginalization strategy, instead it should create room for greater support among the women for fellow women.
“When women build strong leadership force within themselves internally, it becomes automatic” she said.
In his own contribution: The former president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, disclosed that education which involves mental and psychological preparedness with character training, physique and belief in God are three things aspiring women should have, adding that operating in a male chauvinistic terrain, women need to manage men to get to teh top because men have ego.