By Hajaratu Kalokoh
The United Nation Women has held a dialogue session with different media practitioners to create a closer partnership in advancing the GoSL’s development priorities in line with the frame work of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in Sierra Leone.
The thrust of the dialogue was centered around a way of creating mutual effective relationship between the media and the UN body in enhancing gender equality and the empowerment of women in Sierra Leone to achieving the SDGs goal.
The UN woman is the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. It is the agency within the UN body which works towards the empowerment of women.
Baindu Massaquoi, programme specialist at UN Women Sierra Leone, said they focus on women because they are often the least empowered in society.
“We are focusing on women because statistics has shown that in terms of education, agriculture, economics, women are less empowered compared to men,” she said.
She added: “We want to bridge the gap by bringing more women onboard especially in participating in decision making, thereby increasing the space for women in terms of political participation.”
Baindu deliberated on the importance of the media as it influences policies, raises awareness and brings many important issues into focus for them to be discussed.
Marbey Sartie, Programme Management Specialist, gave an overview of the UN women and its mandate and some of the activities the organization has been embarking on.
The UN Women first operated in Sierra Leone in 2002 as UNIFEM, before its name was changed in July 2010.
“UN women has been leading policy legislature on women’s empowerment, coordinate with other UN entity efforts in enhancing women’s empowerment,” stated Mr Sartie. He said since 2010 the organization has been engaging in development framework, governance, leadership and push for more women to be represented in decision making positions.
A major project of the UN Woman has been the global effort to attain the 30% quota, which means for at least 30 percent of women to occupy key decision making positions in a country. In Sierra Leone the UN agency has been fighting to attain this at all levels, particularly in parliament. Sartie lamented that the gola is far from being attained as the current parliament constitutes only about 12% of women.
“If African countries like Rwanda have 65% of women in parliament; this is an indication that it is not a distant reality, it is achievable,”he said.
Sartie emphasized on the relevance of economic empowerment of women by providing stronger entrepreneurship which he noted will enhance every other aspects of development.
Dr Mary Okumu, UN Women Country Representative, noted that meeting with the fourth Estate is a wonderful opportunity as the media is an important instrument in advancing positive change in a society.
“There is a lot to be done particularly on the aspect of leaving no one behind in terms of women s empowerment,” Ms Okumu said.
Umaru Samai, Programme and Advocacy Associate, briefly commented on one of their strategies in bridging the gap of gender equality which is the He for She campaign.
“The He for She [campaign] was launched as a system that involves male engaging men, boys, and stakeholders to campaign for women’s empowerment by encouraging men to work side by side with women,” he said.
The UN Women works with various organizations, including NGPOs and civil society organizations. One of these is the Women in The Media Sierra Leone (WIMSAL), whose President, Tiana Alpha who is also the Station manager of Sky Radio, was present at the media engagement. Alpha said the media plays an integral role in terms of providing public information and education and therefore engaging the media is a step in the right direction.”
‘The engagement will help the public to have better understanding of what the objectives and mandate of UN Women are,” she said.
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