It’s a scenic two-hour drive from Kigali to the rural landscape of Kinazi in Rwanda’s southern province. Being the only journalist in this field mission led by the energetic and dynamic Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, has its advantages.
Firstly, there’s a grand welcome awaiting us at the other end.
Barefoot children and grateful women greet the convoy, erupting in song and dance in pink, yellow and blue costumes that put the beautiful hillsides to shame. The men and infants are huddled under umbrellas in the warm sun, and the women give the occasion “so much zest”, as Mlambo-Ngcuka later says.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-6380" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/22-05-2014-2-2-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
In Kinazi, UN Women partners with Terimbere Mutegarugori, a cooperative bringing together 93 women from various backgrounds to enable them to financially support themselves and their families through agricultural initiatives.
This group is one of 11 cooperatives supported through the Imali Project, meaning ‘wealth’. Currently, they are being given seed money, modern greenhouses and training to increase tomato and mushroom production. This project is financed through core funding to UN Women, from the Government of Korea and in partnership with the Imbuto Foundation, headed by Rwanda’s First Lady Jeannette Kagame.
That the Rwandan government is committed to gender promotion is evident even in this tiny village.
Women are an unprecedented 63.8% of Rwanda’s parliament. Yet, there is need to ensure they are given skills to generate daily income, develop a savings mindset, upgrade their skills and sustain their communities.
As Mlambo-Ngcuka tours the greenhouse inspecting rows and rows of red, juicy tomatoes, soon to be sold to the market, the farmers around her swell with pride. This project has changed their lives.
In just two years of operation, the results are there to see. Members are using the money to pay the children’s school fees, and have also opened savings accounts to transition to the next level of empowerment.
“Food is a woman’s issue. It’s your responsibility to make sure the nation is well-fed, to make sure that out of the good land, you also have opportunities. You feed your children and yourself and you also come here to generate the surplus to sell, and [you get] income. You have done well,” said Mlambo-Ngcuka in her address to them.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-6381" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/22-05-2014-2-3-300x202.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="202" />
“We should also remember the other cooperatives and the 11 greenhouses spread throughout Rwanda. Together you can create a critical mass and take charge of the market. Sitting in New York, I should be able to eat a tomato from Imali. I want to be in South Africa, and eat a tomato from Imali,” she said.
Truly, you help a woman, you help the world.

Tomatoes From  Kinazi To New York

You started as a schoolteacher. How did you get into development work?
South Africans of my generation were born into a situation that required us to take a stand. Some of us were lucky to be in communities where there were opportunities for us to be involved in charity and development work. The organization that gave me the first insight about my community was the YWCA, because my mother was a member. She was my role model as she was involved in community work. A lot of women were quietly making a difference. They were ordinary women doing extraordinary things during the apartheid days. They were filling the gap to provide services the system was not providing in black townships. Many of them worked in communities to get women to grasp the fact that spacing children will give them the freedom to be productive citizens, further their education and take time to become leaders.
How much of a challenge is reproductive health today in Africa?
Reproductive health continues to be one of the biggest issues of our time. Many of the girls start their journey to poverty at a very early age. It is usually because of unmet needs of reproductive health, and lack of access to services and in some cases, the challenge of reproductive rights that are violated: it could be rape and denial of services, therefore at an early age, they end up having children they cannot afford to look after. And as soon as that happens, they have signed a contract with poverty forever. They have also introduced poverty in the next generation, as it is most likely that the children they have will also be poor.
At another level is the prevalence of early marriages, one of the biggest challenges we have in the 21st century. They are sanctioned by parents and traditional leaders and we have inadequate response and action by governments. Many of the children who have early marriages are never going to take full advantage of their potential. A young girl who has the capacity to be a great scientist loses all of it, because at age 12, she is married to a 40-year-old. In many situations, the girls are married off to people they don’t know. So their emotional wellbeing is completely ignored.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-6226" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/PHUMZA_MLAMBO-NGUCKA_0023TP-1_LARGER-FILE-260x300.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="300" />
What about the missing Nigerian girls?
What has happened to the girls in Nigeria is in many ways a reflection of this crisis. What we are experiencing is modern-day slavery – the trafficking of young girls abducted in their communities. We are doing it to ourselves as Africans, we are taking our own children and abducting them and selling them and all of us who condemn slavery as nations of the world are not there to make sure this practice is not allowed to thrive on our continent or anywhere in the world. We have to find a way of making this a global responsibility, and not just the responsibility of the nation where it happens.
We are establishing a partnership with African Development Bank and will be working in post-conflict countries to support the recovery of women so they have the means to rebuild their lives and the community. The majority of women in Africa work in agriculture. Statistics [reveal] that if we show the same amount of support to women in agriculture, it will positively impact 150 million people on the continent.
What about issues of public health?
In some countries [in Africa], mothers and children die under circumstances that are preventable. Public education and access to public health is growing on the continent, there are many good stories of economic opportunities for women in ecotourism, sustainable development and the knowledge economy. For all these decisions to become public norms, you need all of society to buy into the changing circumstances. You need the man to be a part and parcel of this. For International Women’s Day 2014, our program ‘He For She’ called for men to come out and share their views on why gender equality is important and what they can do about it, in their companies and communities.
What is the global perception
of Africa?
It is by and large negative. We are not hearing enough about women who are breaking the glass ceiling and are change-agents. We don’t hear enough about Rwanda, where the parliament has the highest female participation. There are an outstanding number of women who are passing laws in Nigeria.
More should be done to ensure girls do not stay out of school. The education is also about curriculum, and to produce teachers who do not propagate stereotypes. And [the need] is to have a labor market that has equal pay for men and women.
You have been SA’s Deputy President. Would you ever be keen on making it as its first female President?
There are a lot more capable women.
When it happens, it will be a great day for South Africa and I will be cheering and supporting them.
&#8211; Interviewed by Methil Renuka

‘Take Time To  Become Leaders’

Almost two decades since the ground-breaking Beijing Women’s Conference, no country in the world can claim gender equality. As the United Nations Under Secretary-General Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka notes, giving women equal opportunity and removing economic structural barriers, will spur inclusive growth. This view is echoed by prominent economists, such as the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) Mthuli Ncube and AGH Capital’s Charles Okeahalam, who say studies show that providing economic opportunity to the other half will without doubt lift growth.
“As with most issues of social transformation, reducing gender inequality is a process, not an event. The key issue is for society to distribute inputs and resources in a way that allows for a full set of economic and social opportunities to be more gender neutral. In Africa, this would lead, as it has done in a number of more industrially advanced societies, to an increase in the opportunity cost of maternity,” says Okeahalam. Yet women remain largely marginalized. According to the WEF’s 2013 Global Gender Gap Report, there are no African countries in the top 10 economies that have closed their gender gaps in the main categories of education, health, economy and politics. Lesotho and South Africa are the best placed, at number 16 and 17 respectively. Overall, the region closed 66% of its gender gap last year, though in education, the continent holds last place.
The 2014 report will be released at this year’s WEF, to be held in Abuja, Nigeria, from May 7 to 9. Women’s issues will be addressed in various other forums around the gathering, says Huguette Umutoni, WEF Africa Team Co-ordinator.
“We are looking to have women’s issues as a common thread for many of our sessions be it around jobs, entrepreneurship, agriculture, peace and security,’’ says Umutoni.
Femmes Africa Solidarité’s Bineta Diop, recently appointed the Africa Union Commission’s special envoy for Women, Peace and Security, will be one of the co-chairs of the Abuja summit. There will also be two other sessions focusing on female leaders.The forum’s efforts are part of a broader struggle to increase women’s participation in the continent’s development. AfDB’s 2014-2018 gender strategy is closely linked to its 10-year strategy, which promotes inclusive growth.
“Investing in women and girls is smart economics and impacts everyone positively,’’ says Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, the AfDB’s special envoy on gender.
The statistics certainly make for some sad reading. A fifth of Africa’s women have bank accounts and the United Nations Development Program says the continent has suffered a 60% loss in development because of gender inequality.
African women and girls are among the world’s poorest, have the highest illiteracy rates, earn amongst the lowest wages and even in agriculture, where women dominate, productivity is 30% lower than men because of lack of access to inputs, according to the AfDB. Klaus Schwab, the Executive Chairman of the WEF, says it is everybody’s responsibility – governments, civil society, educators and media – to provide policy frameworks and the environment to empower women.
“There is not one path to parity, but many. Cash transfer programs, equal access to credit and financial services, parental leave, affordable childcare facilities, innovative hiring processes, redesigned career paths and meaningful mentoring programs are but a few of the types of changes that  must be made,’ says Schwab in the 2013 Global Gender Gap Report.
African governments have also been making strides. In March, South Africa’s parliament passed a gender bill that criminalizes discrimination against women and seeks to improve their access to education, training and skills development. But across the continent, the absence of statistics and lack of gender mainstream planning means more remains to be done.

Invest In Us, It’s Smart’

More than five years ago, she found herself on the wrong side of history when South Africa’s ruling party opted for leaders whom it believed would be more connected to the country’s poor and working class.
But now Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who has been in the background since then, has been appointed as a leader of the world’s largest bureaucracy, the United Nations (UN).
For the next four years, she will serve as the executive director of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women, known colloquially as UN Women.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-5747" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2013-Oct-054-057-CA-Phumzile-001-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
“It’s always been a defining feature for me, that if anything works, it must work for women. I have always known that this is my benchmark and I must get there as quickly as possible… If I cannot facilitate change, God forbid!” she says.
The body, which was formed in 2010, is tasked with promoting women’s rights and their participation in global affairs. UN Women can boast some successes, such as helping women gain seats in seven national elections, and reforming laws and policies in 26 countries to increase women’s access to economic assets and social protection.
But Mlambo-Ngcuka has her work cut out for her. Although there are calls, which she supports, to develop a stand-alone UN goal to achieve gender equality, the organization faces serious challenges, including inadequate funding.
Also, in a time when the world has to deal with economic uncertainty, more than often, budget cuts negatively affect the progress of women and entrench gender inequalities.
Mlambo-Ngcuka joins a list of women who were shining stars in former South African president Thabo Mbeki’s cabinet and have since left the country to take up international positions&#8230; Mlambo-Ngcuka, African Union Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and special envoy on gender at the African Development Bank, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, could all, arguably, in their own right lead South Africa.
However, the experience Mlambo-Ngcuka gained while she served in government, and her well-known
tenacity, will now be put to use on the global stage.
She insists Africa will be a priority, but not at the expense of other regions.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-5745" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2013-Oct-054-057-CA-Phumzile-003-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
“When you think about Africa, the first thing that comes to your mind is poverty. And yet there’s a lot of good things in Africa… I want for us to start picturing a different Africa and bring forward that Africa does have resources. That there is a fighting spirit that we need to harness,” she says.
Mlambo-Ngcuka is not alone in her approach. For far too long, Africa has been depicted as the begging bowl of the world , a perception that Dlamini-Zuma also wants to remedy.
Mlambo-Ngcula says she plans to work closely with Dlamini-Zuma, as well as Africa’s two women presidents, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf from Liberia and Malawi’s Joyce Banda.
“I would want to go to these women on the issues I’m going to be pushing forward as they relate to Africa. I actually want to harness their stature and the influence they have to make a push. Also, I will need them in working with the other leaders in Africa.”
There are strategic countries on the continent whose buy-in Mlambo-Ngcuka will have to get, such as Nigeria, with its wealth of powerful and influential women.
Women across the world face a multitude of challenges, which change in severity depending on where they live and what their social standing is. Mlambo-Ngcuka believes that if she can improve the quality of education and reproductive health, her time at the UN will not have been wasted.
“One of the things that is uniquely disabling sometimes to women, is failure to address their reproductive health. Women have an unwanted baby when they are not ready to support the child. You trigger inter-generational poverty and the life of that woman comes to a standstill. So allowing women to reach their full potential without having to deal with the responsibility of having a family they have not planned for, is, for me, very important.”
Mlambo-Ngcuka took office in August 2013 and has a number of initial ideas on how she will improve UN Women. When her predecessor, former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, resigned to focus on politics, she was criticized in some quarters for not leaving much of a legacy. Some of this was blamed on her role being confined to raising awareness about women’s living conditions and UN Women having no executive powers.
“I don’t want to be all gung-ho right at the beginning, and maybe create that vibe for myself, but really, I am also concerned. I cannot leave my country to be a token. We need to do something that is destiny-changing for women.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5746" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2013-Oct-054-057-CA-Phumzile-004-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
“In my discussions with UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, he made it very clear it is important that we make an impact on women. I am hoping that I can lean on him and when it turns out actually that there isn’t scope for that, I can go and speak to him.”
Mlambo-Ngcuka’s strategy is not to reinvent the wheel, but to build on what people are currently doing. Her aim is to give UN Women a much stronger presence and make sure that women’s issues are more visible.
“I want to make sure women are in your face… I just feel our voice is a bit muzzled, a bit timid. And I feel that this is one time where you want to lead from the front.”

Tag: Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Tomatoes From Kinazi To New York

‘Take Time To Become Leaders’

Invest In Us, It’s Smart’

SA’s global citizen: The new head of UN Women wants to redefine the world for women.