Nyeri County has unveiled a five-year plan to support its efforts to promote gender equality by incorporating gender into its programmes and policies.
Nyeri becomes the seventh county to approve a gender policy, and it joins the ranks of Makueni, Kajiado, Meru, Migori, Kisumu, and Isiolo counties in taking deliberate steps to address gender disparity.
According to Nyeri Governor Mutahi Kahiga, the Gender and Development Policy 2021–2025 will also lay a strong foundation for the promotion of social inclusion across all sectors of the county’s development agenda.
The adoption of the policy means that the county will also be compelled to institutionalise the gender function in the County Government.
The move will also see the county government commit to addressing all forms of historical gender concerns.
“The Gender and Development Policy will guide our efforts to create a more equitable society by ensuring equal access to education, healthcare, economic opportunities, and political participation. We are committed to eliminating all forms of gender-based violence and discrimination and to creating an environment where both men and women can reach their full potential,” said Kahiga during a ceremony to unveil the policy in his office.
Among the issues that the policy will remedy are Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV).
The County Committee Executive Member in Charge of Gender and Social Services, Esther Ndung’u, noted the county is still recording incidents of SGBV, which have hampered development efforts in the county. To tackle this, Ms. Ndung’u says that the policy has advocated for the systemic eradication of GBV by tackling the different enabling factors.
Whereas the policy places more focus on the establishment of a strong SGBV prevention and response working group, the document has also underscored the need for the involvement of men in addressing GBV at all levels. One of the recommended strategies is the introduction of behavioural and attitude change programmes as a way of doing away with harmful cultural practices that are root causes of the vice.
“Within the implementation framework, we have trained 40 GBV community champions because we know that Nyeri is among the leading counties in matters of GBV. We also have a technical working group composed of stakeholders from the National and County governments which meets on a quarterly basis to come up with strategies for eradicating GBV,” said the CEC.
The policy document is also pushing for the realisation of the two-third gender rule in all sectors of the county. Although the county government has taken deliberate actions to fully implement the rule in its appointments, the executive is pushing to strengthen affirmative action programmes as one of its strategies for increasing representation in elective and appointive positions. The county’s cabinet is made up of three women County Executive Committee members and seven men. Out of the 13 chief officers in the county, four of them are women.
But data collated by the department for gender shows low uptake of elective positions by women. Apart from the County Women Representative, no woman was elected to the parliamentary seats during the 2017 and 2022 general elections. In the county assembly, only three women secured their seats through the ballot; in the 2022 general election, 10 women were nominated by the majority party in the county assembly.
“The policy framework ensures equality and women’s empowerment in the social, economic, political, and cultural spheres. It should also be mentioned that the framework will strengthen affirmative actions geared towards reducing and eliminating gender inequalities as well as increasing representation in elective and appointive positions,” says the Gender and Development Policy 2021-2025.
By Wangari Mwangi
