Much as women in Rwanda now top the world rankings in decision making, Rwanda has not been ranked in Global Gender Gap report 2011 released yesterday.
The report was released by World Economic Forum, a non-government organization based Geneva, Switzerland.
Another Geneva based organization Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) had observed that Rwanda had overtaken the long-time leader, Sweden in women empowerment but still some reports suggest Rwanda success has been only in political section.
The released report measures the inequality between men and women with political, educational and economic opportunities.
Not only Rwanda was not ranked but also DR Congo and Lesotho emerged number one in Sub-Saharan Africa followed by South Africa then followed Burundi which is ranked on 3rd position in the region hence toping East African Community bloc.
No country has yet to achieve gender equality, although research points to empowering women being the key to unlocking potential and stimulating economies.
Among the headlines this year, women hold less than 20% of all national decision-making positions, India ranks lowest on gender parity.
The report underscore that the world has however made great progress in eliminating inequality between men and women in health and education, but not in economic participation and political empowerment, according to a survey of 135 nations.
The annual survey shows that four Nordic countries, Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden, led the world again in promoting gender equality with United States rankings rising from 19th to 17th position.
“A world where women make up less than 20 percent of the global decision-makers is a world that is missing a huge opportunity for growth and ignoring an untapped reservoir of potential,” Klaus Schwab, founder and chairman of the World Economic Forum, said in a statement.
The annual survey, released at a press conference in New York, showed that over the past six years about 85 percent of countries have narrowed the gender gap.
But in other countries the gap widened and the situation for women worsened, including in Nigeria, Mali, Colombia, Tanzania and El Salvador. Pakistan, Chad and Yemen were at the bottom of the list.
Saadia Zahidi, head of the forum’s women leaders and gender parity program, said the world as a whole has closed about 96% of the gender gap in health and 93% in education, but only about 60% of the gap in economic participation and less than 20% in political empowerment.
“So women are starting to be as healthy and as educated as men, and yet, are not being channeled into the economy, into decision-making structures,” Zahidi said.
Zahidi said closing the gender gaps are directly correlated with increased economic competitiveness with the world focused on job creation and economic growth adding that gender equality is the key to unlocking potential and stimulating economies.
The survey shows that a number of relatively developing countries have made major strides to close the gender gap and rank in the top 25, the Philippines, Lesotho, South Africa, Cuba, the Bahamas and Burundi.
The Global Gender Gap Index introduced by the World Economic Forum in 2006, is a framework for capturing the magnitude and scope of gender-based disparities and tracking their progress.
The Index benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, political, education- and health-based criteria.
African women in the on-going two-day meeting in Kigali have condemned what they termed lack of political commitment by most governments to ensure the development of women in African continent.
It is a Pre- Eighth African Governance Forum (AGF-VIII) meeting on Gender Equality, Elections and the Management of Diversity in Africa.
Participants blame their governments saying that if they were dedicated to gender promotion, no African woman would be suffering to date.
Aloisea Inyumba, Rwanda’s Minister of Gender and Family promotion, told the participants in the meeting yesterday that the government embarked on empowerment strategies to allow gender equality all political, economic and social affairs.
“Women have been brought into the mainstream of our political, economic and social life and our government is determined to do that because we cannot talk about democracy without their involvement in national governance,” said the minister.
According to statistics, Rwandan women form 53 percent of the population and currently, in parliament, they occupy 56.25 percent seats making it a world leader in female parliamentary representation.
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