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Topic Discussion III
Participation in
Democratic Decision-Making:
The Vital Voices of Women, Civil Society and
Pluralism
Room 2
(3 of 21 pages)
As our Prime Minister mentioned in the plenary session yesterday, the government
introduced a policy of national reconciliation. Having been independent for nine years, I can witnessed that the
policy was highly successful and [inaudible], Namibia is one of the most peaceful and politically stable countries
in the world.
In addition, the government introduced a strong central government to deal away with the divide and rule system
of the former government. However, having achieved the important task of establishing a national identity, Namibia
has now legislated policy on decentralization. To decentralize, political material, human and financial resources
to regional and local levels of government. The policy also berights (ph) for the participation of civil society
in the form of [inaudible], civils (ph), women, youth and disabled as [inaudible] on the development committees.
At village, town and region levels.
The Namibian government has also established other institution or missives to ensure the participation of originetic
(ph) people. These platforms are our legislative system. The parliament is quite open. Even the committee is open
for people's input. We have a department of women's affairs in the office of the President, Menish (ph) by a Director,
Director Jenoa (ph). At the level of women is that. She also sits in the cabinet. This office has original offices
to ensure access to all women. This office works very closely with angios (ph) and sibios (ph).
The Namibian government is very supportive of the angio (ph) community, of the angio community after the gates
of liberation struggle where all people afford for a common goal, political freedom, both the government and the
angio (ph) community recognize the importance of the continuity of this relationship and continue to tackle together,
the fight for economic development.
We have an ombudsman office by a constitutional establishment. And this office is headed by a woman. The Namibian
government and political parties are very liberal about the participation of women. About 26 percent of our limentarions
(ph) are women. The president and the political parties are advocating for at least 33 percent presentation of
women on all platforms. But up to date this has been a difficult goal to achieve because of our customs and tradition.
Some pieces of liberal legislation have been passed the Namibian parliament. Currently the gender policy and the
rape bill is under debate at the parliament. We have a vibrant media and the government supports freedom of expression.
The Namibian government has introduced mergers (ph) to ensure a gender sensitive budget. This program is run by
the department of women's affairs in collaboration with UNTP. The current challenges is given this liberal and
[inaudible] environment, for civil society to participate, I must state that the Namibian civil society is not
yet made maximum use of the environment. Coming from a background where participation was banned, and unthinkable,
all efforts by the Namibian civil society before independence was [inaudible] independence, they are therefore
happily any group dealing with issues of development.
It is important to keep in mind that now maybe it's only nine years old. We are in the process of reuniting our
fragmented communities for years of apartheid. The Namibian civil society including women groups are re-engineering
themselves from liberation to governance. Civil society advocacy is a new culture and we are still at the rising
awareness educational maintenance stage of development. Encouraging civil organizations to participate is the focus
of the NDI technical assistance in Namibia. And this continues to be a doubting challenge. Violence against women
remains a very serious problem in Namibia and to even continue to add to it, to raise awareness of its affects.
We have a high enrollment of girls to boys in primary schools. But this trend to tend to reverse. Due to the village
pigmency (ph) problem. This issue remains a big challenge to Namibia. This is the main cause of the low representation
of women, and this is making level.
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