Inter Press Service - July 9, 2003
Frank Phiri

The women, under a grouping called the Young Women Leaders Network (YWLN), want to put fellow women in the fore of developing this impoverished southern African state of 10 million people, of which women make up 50 percent.

The young women professionals say they draw their inspiration from the various socio-economic and development woes that afflict the country resulting in women becoming the most vulnerable group.

"We realised that all our problems were similar and sought to form a common front to confront these problems," Evelyn Mwapasa, chairperson of YWLN told IPS in the commercial capital, Blantyre.

True to Mwapasa's assertions, Malawi's demographics are not positive. Various local and international institutions, among them the World Bank, place 65 per cent of the total Malawi population to be living below the one United States dollar a day threshold.

And according to the National Aids Commission out of 845,000 people that had been infected with the Aids causing virus, HIV about 18 per cent (152 000) are women.

The commission also estimates that the pandemic, whose initial cases were recorded in 1985, has since then created 500 000 orphans and that 65 000 orphans were being added every year following deaths of their parents.

However, it is not only HIV/Aids that has wrecked havoc and left Malawi's often subdued, starved and oppressed women with the awesome task of looking after orphans and the sick.

The country's recent sluggish economic growth, worsened by the suspension of budgetary aid by donors and closure of companies due to the snowballing of liberalisation, has decimated incomes for women and their households leaving them poorer than before.

Mwapasa says it is behind such a backdrop that some of the county's women professionals thought of forming their organisation in May 2000, which is seeking to build a critical mass of young Malawian women in leadership positions, who can effectively contribute to the development agenda of the country.

She says three years down the line, YWLN has shrugged off its formative stages and is set to surprise other stakeholders who thought it was made up of a bunch of greedy young women thirsty for power and publicity.

'Things have moved fast and we have made a lot of progress in so many critical areas," says Mwapasa, who last month won the admiration of many Malawians when she led employees in the company where she is the Chief Executive, in a brave showdown against the sale of the company at a giveaway price to a local Indian investor.

She says YWLN's registered membership has grown to 60 women all coming from diverse professions who have been engaged in various outreach programmes throughout the country.

Mwapasa says key programmes include capacity building in environmental management, mentoring and role modelling of secondary school and college female students, budget implementation monitoring, interactive leadership forums at local and regional level, HIV/Aids support to the sick and orphans and advocacy activities.

She cites input into the Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (MPRSP), the blueprint for gaining debt relief under the Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative, assistance to women village headmen in replanting trees in areas where they have been cut down, HIV/Aids awareness to students and relief to institutions caring for orphans whose parents have died from Aids.

Lady Village Headwoman Ida Jamali from Mdeka, a rural area 45 kilometres east of Blantyre, is among the grassroots female leaders being paraded by YWLN as role models to society. She has successfully mobilised her subjects to afforest a hill that 13 years ago lay bare due to rampant deforestation in her area.

Jamali encourages fellow women and young women leaders to take a leaf from her determination to get things done.

"As women, we do things better because we're meticulous and always do the best to avoid mistakes which make us subject of ridicule from men. The confidence to stamp authority on both men and women is there, what we lack are logistical capacities," she said.

Questions have, however, been raised with regards to the effectiveness of women who have been entrusted with leadership positions and are lobbying for the same in the corridors of policy making institutions.

Men-critics ponder that not many Malawian women are brave enough to handle things when they get tough.

'We're not denying women assuming leadership roles, but traditionally women here have always expected men to lead them," says Charles Kawerawera, a lecturer in engineering at the Polytechnic, a constituent college of the University of Malawi.

But Mwapasa is quick to respond. "I myself have responded to challenge the sale of my company at an immoral price. This has given me a lot of strength," she said, in reference to the current disputed privatisation of her company.

She says while liberalisation is inevitable, its effects on the economy were bringing more misery than joy to women who have either lost jobs or have helplessly seen husbands being retrenched. The result has been loss of income and no means to support bloated families, she says.

Nellie Nyang'wa, Programme Officer for the Joint Oxfam Programme in Malawi, agrees with Mwapasa. She says liberalisation and its heir apparent, privatisation, must be rejected if they ignore social responsibilities of companies towards society, particularly women.

"Privatisation must rationalise both commercial and social interests of shareholders and consumers," she said.

Ten years after Malawi attained democratic rule, there has been a tremendous improvement in terms of women representation at policy level.

Apart from the creation of a Gender ministry in 2001, the number of women cabinet ministers has increased from three to eight. The number of women Members of Parliament also shot up from four to 12 in the last general elections in 1999. In April this year, President Bakili Muluzi, appointed Mary Mkosi as Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi.

Currently, New Gender Minister and MP for Machinga Central in the southern region, Alice Sumani, says the appointment of Mkosi and other women professionals to various policy positions underscore the government's commitment in elevating the status of women in Malawi by giving them an opportunity to have a go at the leadership.

She adds that this commitment is in line with the goal of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to increase the number of women in policy and decision-making processes to 30 per cent by the end of 2003.

On July 1 the Malawi Parliament for the first time elected a woman, Loveness Gondwe, to the post of First Deputy Speaker. Gondwe is the MP for the opposition Alliance for Democracy (Aford) in the western constituency of Mzimba, a district in the northern region of Malawi. Her election follows the vacancy created by the appointment of former Speaker, Sam Mpasu, as minister of Commerce and Industry.

"Her appointment is testimony that government and the ruling United Democratic Front is serious to uplift women to leadership positions. It also shows that we men are not greedy," says Uladi Mussa, minister of Natural Resource and Environmental Affairs who is also the Chief Whip.

"We expect other women like Gondwe to rise up and help us men to develop the country," he said. (ENDS/IPS/AF/SA/CR/FP/SM/03)

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