Africa today is undergoing tremendous change. This fact is reluctantly acknowledged by the international community, which continues to see Africa through the prism of ignorance and obfuscation. Part of this change affects women, and the women’s rights movement all over the continent. While universal principles are good for advocacy, unless these principles are domesticated, they are of little value in the struggle for equality and social justice. That is why talking about ‘gender equality’ and women’s leadership will remain empty glib talk unless concrete practical actions are taken by national authorities, non-state actors, and people with leadership responsibilities to treat this as a national emergency. This is precisely the trend in Kenya, where a new Amkeni Wakenya-led Women’s Leadership Academy is addressing the thorny issues of women in political leadership beyond the rhetoric of numbers to actual skills development and monitoring of how women can revolutionise leadership in Kenya under the 2010 constitution, which has been judged to be revolutionary.

The newly adopted constitution has been celebrated as a landmark document in Africa. Top among its most admired clauses is the section dealing with socio-economic rights and liberties. However, most observers have pointed to the fact that none of these clauses will make sense to ordinary people unless and until the constitution is fully implemented. While the business of implementing the constitution has been left to the Constitution Implementation Commission (CIC), actualising the constitution requires more than legalistic frameworks.

In furtherance of this, a number of women’s organisations, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and its flagship programme for enhancing the role of civil society in democratic governance, called Amkeni Wakenya, have launched a far reaching programme to develop the skills of women political leaders across Kenya. The Women’s Leadership Academy, aims to mobilize a sizeable proportion of ambitious Kenyan women leaders in every village, town, county or constituency, and build their skills to the level where they are able to compete with men for the various political positions under the constitution.

Amkeni Wakenya is a UNDP-led facility set up to promote democratic governance in Kenya. Established in 2008, Amkeni Wakenya was previously known as the Civil Society Democratic Governance Facility (CSDGF) and works through civil society organisations in the areas of democracy, human rights, governance reforms and the integration of a rights-based approach in social and economic reforms in Kenya.

The long-term outcome of Amkeni Wakenya is to enable citizens to benefit from a more accountable, just, transparent and democratic society and to support civic engagement which empowers all people to influence public policies. Amkeni Wakenya supports activities to strengthen participatory democracy, social justice, the rule of law and protection of human rights and facilitates citizens’ active engagement in development processes.

Amkeni Wakenya’s Women’s Leadership Academy is aimed at promoting women’s role in governance through a multiplicity of methods; top among them is ensuring that Kenya’s legislature benefits from an increase in women representation at the 2012 elections. At present percentage of women legislature in the Kenyan parliament stands at a paltry 9.8 percent. Amkeni is poised to work with a number of women’s organisations across Kenya to ensure that women and girls participate effectively and benefit from Kenya’s ongoing national reform process and the constitution.

THE CONSTITUTION AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR ADVANCING WOMEN’S RIGHTS

In August 2010, Kenyans approved a new national constitution through a national referendum after a long process drawn out over several years. The new constitution offers opportunities for legal and institutional reforms necessary to transform the lives of poor and marginalised communities. In particular, it presents several gains for women’s rights that were absent in Kenya’s former constitutional dispensation. The 2010 Constitution invalidates any customary or religious laws that are inconsistent with the provisions of the constitution and therefore effectively prohibits discriminatory laws against women’ and states that ‘treaties or conventions ratified by Kenya will form part of the law – this will include all the women’s rights related international instruments that the country has ratified in the past but has failed to implement, therefore creating a crucial platform to hold the government accountable to its women’s rights commitments. But most important of all, the 2010 constitution compels ‘the state to take legislative and other measures to ensure that at least one third of members in elective or appointive bodies are not of the same gender’ and sets out guidelines for the representation of women in the national assembly, the senate and the county.

Amkeni believes that these gains will be wasted if women at various levels of society who stand to benefit most are not aware of them. Amkeni’s Women’s Leadership Academy seeks to ensure that all women from the local to the national level participate in on-going national processes geared towards the reconstruction of Kenya.

The academy seeks to work assiduously with women to ensure that as many women at the county level emerge to take advantage of the new political opportunities. This can only be done if women are prepared to seize these opportunities and overcome many hurdles, some cultural others professional. As noted by Priscilla Nyokabi, executive director of Kituo cha Sharia, ‘there is an urgent need for a critical mass of knowledgeable and effective women leaders in the various decision-making spaces connected to the implementation of the constitution’. Amkeni believes that these can be anticipated and mitigated as early as possible through education and planning.

History has taught that without the active participation of women at all levels of decision-making, national development cannot be achieved as noted by Margaret Thatcher former British Prime Minister. ‘In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman’. This means that those conscious efforts should be made to cultivate, support and build women’s leadership at all levels of decision making. In the past, several factors prevented women from exercising their constitutional right to vote, to seek political office and participate fully and equally in national decision-making. Apart from negative public perceptions of and biases against women’s leadership abilities, the threat of and actual violence against women seeking elective positions such as physical violence including sexual abuse, low self confidence among women constitute some of the barriers women candidates are likely to face.

With history and experience as teachers, the Women’s Leadership Academy will promote women’s transformative leadership in Kenya by cultivating and nurturing a collection of influential, knowledgeable and accountable potential women leaders at local and national level with the necessary skills to shape effective public policy and leadership practice. It will focus both on ‘getting the numbers’ and ‘going beyond the numbers’ to ensure that when women attain positions in elective and appointive bodies, are effective and accountable leaders. The programme will therefore address the continued need for multi-level advocacy around women’s political participation and for a collective voice of women in Kenya for human rights, peace and security, good governance and democracy. Additionally it will build on the existing opportunities for networking, peer learning, information exchange and mutual capacity building among women leaders across the country.

Finally the programme will seek to garner public support for women’s leadership at community level through targeted civic education and advocacy campaigns. Apart from mass mobilisation and education that will target both men and women, it will also deliberately target the female electorate at county level for civic education on the opportunities for women under the new constitution.

The academy has so far organised three training sessions in Kisumu, Kakamega, and Nakuru for 60 women in each course/training session. The Academy utilises the skills of women leaders from both the political and civil society sector to train women leaders. The training in Nakuru was led by the Women’s Empowerment Link (WEL) and targeted 60 women leaders, some of whom were Councilors, and aspiring parliamentarians. Commenting at the end of the Nakuru leadership workshop, Daisy Amdany, Director of the Community Advocacy and Awareness trust, noted that, ‘Over the years, there have been concerted efforts on the part of women’s activists and organizations focused on women’s empowerment to demand for women’s space in the leadership arena’.

The promulgation of the Constitution of Kenya 2010 has heralded a new beginning for Kenyan women because for the first time in our history, a deliberate effort has been made to ensure that women will have a critical mass in leadership and decision-making. This presents a huge opportunity for women to make a difference at both the county and national level enabling them to be catalysts for positive change. These sentiments represent the hope that the Leadership Academy seeks to instill into aspiring women leaders and young girls in Kenya. It will be among many initiatives, but the UNDP and Amkeni sees this initiative as a long-term investment, which will nurture women leaders from various stages of their development into a formidable force for changing Kenya for the better.

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* Zaya Yeebo and Scholastica Marenya work for Amkeni Wakenya Civil Society and Democratic Governance Facility.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.