THE government, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (UN Women) and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have renewed commitments to enhance efforts to promote women leadership and economic rights across all levels.

This was said in Singida Region recently during a the two-day steering committee meeting to evaluate progress and chart the course ahead for the four-year project to be implemented until 2025.

 The committee which was jointly chaired by permanent secretaries of the Ministry of Community Development, Gender, Women and Special Groups and the President’s Office (Regional Administration and Local), featured discussions on advancing progress on women leadership and economic rights project goals.

 Representing Permanent Secretary, Amon Mpanju, Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Community Development, Gender, Women and Special Groups, acknowledged the strides made and stressed the government’s commitment to making further progress towards gender equality.

 "Tanzania unequivocally recognizes gender equality, equity and women empowerment as fundamental pillars essential for fostering meaningful, inclusive and sustainable development within our society. The government's commitment to these ideals is exemplified by our endorsement of this project, symbolizing our dedication to advancing gender equality and equity across the nation,” he said.

 Mpanju commended the achievements of the project in 2023 which include the successful training of 1,800 women on local governance and leadership, transformative engagement with over 400 community members, including male influencers to challenge discriminatory social norms and significant improvements to gender data collection systems with a focus on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and women's socioeconomic status.

 Peter Magoola, UN Women Acting Country Representative, expressed confidence that with the nurturing environment created by the the project, UN Women was looking forward to seei an increase in women candidates in the forthcoming local government elections, to reduce existing gender disparities in local-level representation.

 “Only 6.5 percent of elected councillors are women currently, with two percent at the hamlet level and six percent at the mtaa level. Our ambition is to significantly increase these figures towards achieving 50/50 representation,” he said.

Juhana Lehtinen, Head of Cooperation in the Embassy of Finland, said the success of the project so far is a result of the solid collaboration between stakeholders and the government, adding that such collaboration has led to the project steering commendable advances to strengthen women’s voices and their role in decision-making processes.