By DOH JAMES SONKEY
Elections Cameroon, ELECAM and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, UN Women, are multiplying strategies to boost massive participation of women at upcoming polls in Cameroon. In order to achieve their target, these institutions reinforced the capacities of political parties’ officials during a workshop so that they can adopt gender sensitive internal documents in prelude to municipal and legislative elections in Cameroon.
Organized last June 28, 2019 in Yaounde, the workshop was officially opened by the Director General of Elections at ELECAM, Erik Essousse who expressed hope that the adoption of gender sensitive internal documents will increase the participation of women at elections as voters, candidates and presidents of polling stations.
In his opening address, Erik Essousse explained that the workshop aims at sensitizing all stakeholders on the importance of giving a gender approach to elections in Cameroon in order to boost the participation of women at elections given that they are bearers of peace.
The Elections DG saluted the presence of two former presidential candidates; Cabral Libi and Serge Matomba at the workshop.
On her part, the Deputy Country Representative of UN Women, Hind Jalal underlined that “the situation of women in Cameroon when it comes to participation at elections is preoccupying. This meeting therefore constitutes a variable platform for lobbying on the situation of women’s participation in the political life of Cameroon.”
Acknowledging that Cameroon has made significant progress in gender promotion, the UN Women official said much is still to be done to beef up the inclusion of women in all sectors of national life especially as only 31% of women are at the National Assembly, 26% at the Senate and barely 30 or more women hold the position of mayor in the 360 councils.
Through this initiative, organizers want to reverse the trend where women participate in vibrancy of all political parties in Cameroon but are unfortunately being relegated to insignificant roles.