Women in politics

16.7% of Zimbabwe’s parliamentarians are women although they do hold over 22% of political offices. The population is 52% women.

If you compare these figures with the world statistics, you find that they fit in below the Italy at 17.3% women parliamentarians and fractionally above the USA at 16.3%. The UK House of Commons is 19.7% women. Scandinavian countries dominate the top of the table, but at the top is Rwanda at 48.8%.

In 2003 the US, France and Japan lagged behind 13 sub-Saharan countries . After the recent elections, France has risen from under 13% to 18.4%.

In Zimbabwe, a Fifty-Fifty campaign organised by the Women in Politics Support Unit is calling for greater representation of women. It will be interesting to see if yet another African country can succeed better than much of the developed world.