4 ways to ensure women benefit from democracy, too

Democracy is not complete when women and other groups of individuals do not equally benefit from it, participants agreed at the Annual Democracy Forum 2014 in Gaborone, Botswana.

Hundreds of representatives from governments, multilateral institutions, nongovernmental organizations, academia and the private sector underscored at the forum that democracies should be in practice and not only in theory.

Gender is often closely linked to poverty in Africa. To achieve economic empowerment, women fight an uphill battle against inequality, political and cultural constraints that result in lack of access to health, education and nutrition. The “feminization” of poverty across the continent means that the poor and women are often one and the same in Africa — even in countries that identify themselves as democracies.