By Steven Godfrey Mkweteza

The women’s legal resources Centre (WOLREC), a local non-governmental organization said despite the efforts to promote women leadership skills within the political party ranks and file, most leadership positions are still occupied by men.

The women and girls rights centered organization, under the Hivos funded women empowered for leadership(WE4L) programme, organized a two- day training on ‘women in leadership and Assertiveness skills’ for political party women leaders in Blantyre.

In an interview during the training which targeted female politicians for the southern and eastern regions, Programs officer for the NGO and coordinator for WE4L project, Tisungane Irene Mtonga said political parties have a crucial role in facilitating leadership development skills to narrow the gender equality quota gaps and level the playing field within their party ranks.

“ The contribution of political parties to the country’s gender equality and decision-making promotion is crucial but is limited by several challenges key, among which, are poor leadership skills.It is against this that we would like to bridge the skills deficiency gap that is prevalent in some established political parties by empowering the women to take up the leadership role.”

The training exercise targeted women leaders from the following political parties UDF, AFORD, DPP, PP, MCP, and UTM.

One of the participants, Flossie Lombola from the Malawi Congress party (MCP) observed that male dominance, stereotyping, cultural norms and economic stability as the main contributing factors to the leadership gaps among the women female political party leaders.

Christine Chikalimba from the UTM, emphasized on the need for the stakeholders to focus on the grass root levels such as school going students whenever implementing their programs.