KWH calls for funding of women vying for elective seats

New York

The Kenya Women Holding, a leading women empowerment and development organisation, has proposed the setting up of a fund to support women running for elective offices in the country.

The Democracy Trust Fund by the Kenya Women Holding (KWH) will seek to address increased representation of women in national leadership and the thorny issue of gender inequality.

Kenya Women Holding Chief Executive Jennifer Riria says her organisation is keen on addressing multiple leadership challenges that women, the youth and disabled people face.

EMPOWER WOMEN

The fund, she says, aims to support all the processes to empower and build capacity for women.

Speaking in New York where she is attending the Commission on the Status of Women at the UN Headquarters, Dr Riria said KWH is set to shift focus from only pursuing the legislative agenda, to include introduction of a model that would emphasise economic stability and early preparation as one way of addressing "the perennial challenge of gender inequalities in Kenya”.

"The trust will therefore seek to increase the number of women in national leadership by providing early money and programme support to ensure that women are properly supported to maintain natural visibility, progression and active participation in community development initiatives, thus enhance the electability that will position women as the preferred option by the electorate," Dr Riria, the founder of the Kenya Women Finance Trust, said.

In the run-up to last year's General Election, Kenya Women Holding ran a programme to raise "the visibility" of women aspirants and candidates as well as the youth and those with disabilities.

The programme, Dr Riria explained, was responding to findings of a survey on balanced gender coverage in the media, whose results indicated a low coverage of women in both print and electronic media.

The organisation, through the "Tuvuke" programme then trained 733 women on how to access to media, and profiled 847 candidates who included 67 youth and 29 with disabilities.

CUMULATIVE GAINS

The organisation says the project contributed to "cumulative" gains attained by women, youth and those with disabilities in the 2017 elections.

In New York, Dr Riria said while there is "considerable" progress in women's participation in processes leading to getting into elective office, there have been "numerous" challenges.

She singled out financing of the processes leading to nominations for national and local elections as a key challenge, saying majority of the women profiled in the General Election approached KWH for financial help.

"Doubtlessly, lack of access to financial resources remains one of the key factors militating against the ability of women candidates to run on an effective campaign and engage effectively in the electoral processes," Dr Riria says.

SUPPORT ALL PROCESSES

KWH will use the proposed fund to support "all processes that empower and build capacity for women."

"The endowment fund is envisaged to be participatory and contributory fund by a target group while programmatic interventions will include such aspects as profiling, networking, political party positioning and community-based initiatives," the organisation states, with Dr Riria adding that they will ensure that "the initiative becomes solid and sustainable alternative funding mechanism for promoting gender equality in Kenya."

On Saturday, Dr Riria is slated to speak on the fund at an event hosted by the Kenya Women Holding on the side-lines of the biggest annual conference on gender equality at the UN Headquarters attended by representatives of governments and the civil society members as well as hundreds of women activists and campaigners from all over the world.

SPEAK ON FUND

The KWH event, titled "Accessing Resources to Advance Women's inclusion in democratic processes in Kenya is expected to be addressed Ms Mary Ellen Iskenderian of Women's World Banking.

Dr Riria is slated to speak on "Democracy Trust Fund: New frontier in Women's Democratic Inclusion”, at the event where Uasin Gishu Woman Rep Gladys Shollei and Ms Dede Ekoue, an international development expert from the Women's Voice from West Africa, are expected to be panellists.

Kenya Women Holding says the trust fund specifically seeks to, among other things, address the relationship between community engagement and women's electability, low profiling and visibility as well association with specific community "responsive" projects.

The fund will also seek to address "the futility of pursuing the not more than two-thirds gender rule through legislation" and inadequate civic education strategies and approaches.