Although these are times when one tends to think that everything is going backwards, the overall picture should keep us hopeful: as I write this article I hear the announcement that the Olympic movement will have, for the first time in its history, a woman president: Kirsty Coventry. The joy from my perspective is further doubled by the fact that she is a former African swimmer, from Zimbabwe, hitherto her country's sports minister, and the most successful African in the history of the Olympic Games.
It has taken 131 years since its foundation for the Olympic movement to be presided over by a woman.
At the same time, on Friday 21 March, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, the first female president of Namibia, located in southern Africa between Angola and South Africa, was sworn in. Known in those parts by the initials of her first and last names, NNN, she will become the third woman president of an African country, after the Liberian Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and the Tanzanian Samia Suluhu Hassan.
They are only three women among a very long list of men, but it is clear that each of them should be applauded for the message they send to the rest of African women. The news from the IOC and Namibia gives me cause to talk, in the month of March, about women on the African continent. Because while it is essential to highlight progress, it is also important to do so if there are setbacks, possibly due to this complex global environment that we talk about so often.
There are many outstanding issues in different areas of African women's empowerment. In terms of political participation, the "Africa 2024 Barometer" shows that women's representation in African parliaments has only grown by one percentage point in three years, from 251Pt3T in 2021 to 261Pt3T in 2024.
At the current rate, experts warn that parliamentary parity will not be achieved until 2100. On the other hand, women's representation in political party leadership positions is not positive, falling from 12% to 9%, and the good figures are still insufficient in other areas, such as executive positions in public administration, where they have risen from 7% to 13%.
Rwanda continues to lead the way in the political promotion of women, with 60% of women parliamentarians and Nigeria is at the bottom with 4%. Of the 54 African countries, 41 apply quotas to put women at the centre of politics, with good results in countries such as Rwanda, South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique and not so good results in others, such as Kenya, Eswatini, Mali and Somalia.
Indeed, Namibia almost achieved a parity parliament five years ago and the women's wings of parties such as SWAPO are relentlessly advancing the gender agenda as I write these words.
It is difficult to say it without sounding stereotypical, but African women are fundamental pillars for the continent's growth and resilience. So we must continue to talk about gender perspective and policies in Africa, and in the rest of the world, and we must continue to ensure that cooperation actions, for example, consider this perspective as a priority.
Because doing so is always synonymous with success. The director of the African Development Bank, Adekunwi Adesina, recalls a fact in many of his public interventions, which he uses to justify a change in the 'status quo' and to openly support the prioritisation of this gender approach: "Women reinvest up to 90 percent of their income in their families and communities. This money is spent on feeding and providing better nutrition for children, educational expenses and paying for doctor's visits.
This past week, at Casa África, we have held two important preparatory events for the great Global Summit on Financing for Development that Spain will host in the city of Seville from the 30th of June to the 3rd of July. And in both, at all times, it was gratifying to see how States, institutions and even the private sector have taken on board the importance of a gender perspective in all actions, not only in the specific SDG (SDG 5, on gender equality).
Perhaps the clearest example is the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), which has directly adopted the slogan #CooperaciónFeminista to make clear the importance given to the gender perspective. At the event we hosted on Tuesday 18, organised by the World Food Programme and the Ministry of Economy, each institutional representative emphasised in their interventions the special impact that debt swap projects have on women and children.
We learned, for example, that Spain swapped debt with Guinea Bissau through a programme that benefited 300 pregnant and lactating women, or that the Italians swapped debt with Egypt in exchange for a cooperation programme that promoted Egyptian civil society initiatives especially focused on women and children.
I think it is important to highlight that, although an important part of this article focuses on the cooperation aspect and on African women as beneficiaries of funds and programmes, they are also, obviously, the professionals who work on the ground, who make decisions in government structures and offices and who contribute effectively to the progress of their communities, without waiting for others to pull their chestnuts out of the fire. The women we see in NGO advertisements and on the news, laden with children and worries, poor and subdued, are part of a much broader, more complex and multifaceted reality. Just like our own.
I write it from the first-hand knowledge that we accumulate by being in contact every day, at Casa África, with women who excel in all fields of knowledge and professions, from port directors to journalists, historians, sociologists, mayors, artists, community leaders, lawyers or businesswomen.