Why BBI could just be wishful thinking on gender equity

The Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) re-ignites the hope of accelerating gender equity and social justice, but how, is a question gender equality advocates seek answers to with cautious optimism.

The BBI team has recommended constitutional amendments to increase women’s inclusion in political leadership.

These include amendment to Article 98, which expressly provides that of the 94 Senators to be elected from the 47 counties, each will have to vote in a woman and a man at the same time - no more nomination of women to Senate.

The team also proposes an amendment to Article 97 of the Constitution to have 360 Members of Parliament (MPs) elected from the 290 constituencies; constituting single and multiple member constituencies.

Exclusive allocation

The additional 70 seats are a replacement of the 47 County Women Representatives and nominated MPs. However, women political leaders propose further review of the amendment to provide for exclusive allocation of all the 70 seats to women.

“Put it there that they will all (70) go to women. All of them without exception,” said Kitui Governor Charity Ngilu during the official launch of the report on October 26.

 Article 90 on allocation of party list seats and Article 177 on membership of county assembly have been selected for amendment to introduce nomination of candidates to the county assemblies through a party list.

“A political party will be entitled to nominate the candidates based on the votes received by a political party in an election,” reads the proposal.

County assemblies

The amendment further requires the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to ensure the party list of the candidates to be nominated to the county assemblies represent women, persons with disabilities, youth, ethnic and other minorities, and marginalised.

This is in alignment with proposed amendment to Article 91 on basic requirements for political parties, requiring political parties to “take measures to implement the principle that not more than two-thirds of the members of elective or appointive bodies shall be of the same gender.”

Policy strategies

The team also proposes amendment to Article 180 on election of county governor and their deputy, providing that “the candidate of the county governor, in nominating a deputy governor, to consider a person who is not of the same gender.”

However, clarity on gender consideration lacks in the composition of the proposed expanded Executive- Prime Minister and two Deputy Prime Ministers, all of whom will be appointed by the President. To be a Prime Minister, one has to be an MP and the leader of the majority party, or coalition of parties in the National Assembly. The position is crucial in determining establishment and passing of gender-sensitive laws as he or she will be the government’s overseer of the legislative agenda in the National Assembly.

Although, the Constitutional amendments seek to bridge the gap in achievement of the two-thirds gender principle in elective leadership, proposals on legislative reforms fall short on gender responsiveness.

 The team has also proposed amendments to Public Finance Management Act, 2012(PFMA Act) (No. 18 of 2012) and Micro and Small Enterprises Act, 2012, both of which promote women’s socio-economic development.

Mainstreaming gender 

PFMA Act, 2012 is central to creating gender responsive budgets to ensure both national and county governments allocate funds addressing prioritised needs of women and men.

The Act, currently lacks provisions on mainstreaming gender responsive budgeting. The report has not addressed this in its recommendations.

During a September 16, ‘Space of Women in National Resource Sharing and Budget Making Processes’ workshop, Parliamentary Budget Office Director, Ms Phylis Makau said PFMA Act, which underpins budgetary allocations, lacks in provisions obligating government ministries, departments and agencies to engender their budgets.

She said the fact that budget policy framework is reviewed on the basis of existing policy strategies means national and county budgets will fail in gender responsive test owing to explicit lack of budget engendering provisions in finance and budget legislations.

Increase allocation

“Honourable Senators, Honourable MPs, please go to the PFM law and sponsor an amendment,” she said during the forum jointly organised by Echo Network Africa, Kenya Women Parliamentary Association (Kewopa) and Kenya Private Sector Alliance (Kepsa).

“There is no reason why we cannot amend the PFMA Act and include the certificate,” she added while referring to Uganda’s legislative requirement of engendering budgets.

In Uganda, it is a mandatory for Minister of Finance to issue a certificate affirming of the budget framework paper as being gender and equity responsive prior to submission to Parliament for approval as provided in the Section 9(6(a-b).

In the proposal to amend Micro and Small Enterprises Act, 2012, the team has recommended a seven-year tax break for youth-owned enterprises, which would essentially benefit women below the age of 35. It is, however, short of mechanisms to address credit hurdles female-led businesses face. Lack of collateral remains the greatest hindrance for women to secure loans.

Empowerment projects 

The proposal to increase allocation of funds to counties to 35 per cent from 15 per cent implies more money to finance women empowerment projects such as drilling boreholes to ease access to water, providing subsidised day-care services for working rural women, or bringing ante-natal services closer home.

Women had, however, preferred a committed share of the increased allocation to specifically meet their needs in the counties.

“Whatever revenue sharing formula they use, let us have a guaranteed allocation of five per cent for women, 177 another five per cent for persons with disabilities and five per cent for the vulnerable like the elderly and vulnerable children,” Kewopa chairperson Gathoni wa Wamuchomba said during an earlier interview.

 “Money meant for socio-economic issues that touch on women and their livelihoods is being diverted to other projects like roads. So, we want to make sure money meant for women issues is actually used for women issues.”

Wishful thinking

 Nevertheless, there is an opportunity for further review of the proposed amendments, at least according to outcomes of the two-day Naivasha summit of pro-BBI MPs.

The summit that ended November 2, was attended by President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga – the co-pioneers of the BBI.

 During the closure of the summit in which the MPs vowed unanimous support for the BBI’s constitutional amendment proposals, Suba North MP Millie Odhiambo said their concerns over Constituency Development Fund (CDF) had been addressed.

Gender equality advocates, however, hold cautious optimism in regard to BBI advancing gender equity and social justice in Kenya. They observe that the BBI’s gender irresponsiveness may be as a result of incomprehensive consultations. Thus, excluding women’s and girls’, views, the intended beneficiaries of the proposed amendments.

Social justice

“We as an institution got to participate because of who we are but the constituents who we work with never got to participate,” says Executive Director of Kenya Female Advisory Organization, Ms Easter Okech.

Centre for Enhancing Democracy and Good Governance program officer, Kemunche Masese, says the proposals are rather retrogressive in measure of gender equity and social justice.

“Everything (in the BBI report) comes out as wishful thinking. I am not seeing anything that provides radical direction towards attainment of gender equity,” he says. 

“When you take County Women Representative position from the National Assembly and take it to the Senate, yet the Senate lacks the power that it was envisaged to have during the Constitutional review process, then the net effect is that you are actually disempowering women,” he adds.

“A female MP has more power than a female Senator; so why take women from a powerful position to a less powerful position? And how is that going to increase women representation in terms of numbers? 

We should retain County Women County Representatives and then increase the numbers of women in the Senate,” concludes Mr Masese.