THE Tanzania Media Women's Association in Zanzibar (TAMWA Zanzibar) has called on the government to formulate laws and policies to promote adherence to gender equality in all sectors and create a database for ease of access to information on women leaders.

Dr Mzuri Issa, director of TAMWA Zanzibar made the suggestions in Zanzibar at the weekend in a statement at the conclusion of a women empowerment project.

“During the course of this project, we encountered the challenge of low availability of data on women leaders holding various leadership positions; the absence of a policy pushing for strict adherence of gender equality in all sectors, the problem of some leaders failing to observe equality during appointments and the lack of a gender policy in political parties,” she said.

Dr Issa also said that there is a crucial need to have friendly systems advocating for the availability of social services for the public, arguing that without such systems it becomes difficult to access services with ease.

She said the objective of the project was to empower women to become exceptional leaders, adding that the participants were empowered through capacity building programmes to be able to seek, demand and defend their personal and societal rights.

“To attain the objective, we taught them about the policies and rights meant to defend women. We attained this objective through community influencers trained in leadership affairs and politics who were able to identify 1,000 challenges faced by the society whereby a total of 771 were addressed and more than 400 solved,” she said.

“Through public meetings, we reached 11,129 people, especially women in all regions of Zanzibar through awareness meetings, discussions, follow-ups and various training programmes. The project has also reached 200 women who were trained in politics, democracy and leadership so that they can participate effectively in decision-making.”

She said that 199 journalists were trained to report on various issues pertaining to women’s rights whereby a total of 2,127 news reports were published on radio, newspapers and on social media to ignite discussions and advocate for accountability among various institutions to bring positive outcomes to the public.

Dr Issa said that through the project, TAMWA Zanzibar created gender policies and gender desks for media outlets whereby seven out of 11 media outlets have already endorsed their gender policy.

She said that the project provided room to meet with government officials, religious leaders, leaders from various media outlets to request for amendment of policies, guidelines and laws.

She commended CCM and ACT-Wazalendo parties for preparing and endorsing their gender policy, adding that the move plays a crucial role to ensure gender equality in political parties.