Sub Saharan Africa

Women Parliamentary Caucus members  have strongly demanded Minister of Health Khumbo Kachali, who is also the country’s Vice-President, to return back the  hospital beds from Mponela Hospital where they were snatched to be given to Mzimba for political campaign purposes.

Chairperson of the female lawmakers Cecilia Chazama said the beds should be returned to the establishment “within 24 hours”.

Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament Juliana Mphande said over 20 female MPs will not accept anything less than returning the beds which were reportedly snatched at night.

Parliament on Wednesday paid a fond farewell and tribute to Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma as she heads for Addis Ababa to chair the African Union commission.

President Jacob Zuma led praise for one of the country's longest-serving post-apartheid ministers, calling her a patriot and her departure a loss for the country, but a gain for Africa.

“She will be sorely missed in the country. But we know that we shall feel and hear her footsteps in Addis Ababa,” he told a joint sitting of both houses of Parliament.

The People's Democratic Party (PDP) in Adamawa State, says the party has witnessed high level of interest by its members for the forthcoming local government elections in the state as over 600 persons out of which 57 are female have indicated interest in securing the ticket of the party to contest the elections.

Secretary of the party, Mr P Elisha who spoke to newsmen in Yola, yesterday, said no fewer than 92 persons are vying for the chairmanship tickets while 577 are slugging it out for the 226 councillorship seats in the state.

A study has called on all stakeholders to work consciously to increase the number of women who will win the District Level Elections (DLEs) in 2014 and other such future elections. "The Performances of Women Candidates in the 2010 District Level Elections: In the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions of Ghana," asked District Assemblies, traditional authorities, civil society organisations (CSOs) and others "to keep all hands on deck, to get more women win the 2014 DLEs" and all other such elections.

The United Nations body on gender equality, "UN Women", on Friday pledged to cooperate with the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.

After an audience granted by the chairperson of the Assembly, Veronica Macamo, the representative of UN Women in Mozambique, Valeria de Campos Mello, said "We shall continue to help where possible. We want to strengthen the capacity of the Assembly in implementing laws concerning gender, and the dialogue between the Assembly and vulnerable and HIV-positive women".

In Ghana, the leader of the opposition Progressive People's Party (PPP), Papa Kwesi Nduom, has named Eva Lokko as the party’s vice presidential candidate for the December 7 general election.

Miss Lokko is an engineer and communications expert, a former director general of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, an information and communication technology (ICT) consultant, and Chief Executive Officer of Totally Youth, a non-governmental organization. She outlined the party’s criteria before her selection.

A four-day capacity building workshop organized for aspiring female parliamentary candidates in the country opened at Akosombo on Wednesday.

The workshop brought together aspiring female parliamentary candidates of the National Democratic Congress, the New Patriotic Party, the Convention Peoples Party, the Progressive Peoples Party and the Peoples National Convention.

Advocacy groups for women and minorities in Somaliland have raised concerns about their political role in government after members of the lower house voted down a provision that would have established a quota for their representation in parliament.

"We decided to remove the provision providing a quota of local council and parliamentary seats to women and other minority groups from the agenda after lawmakers refused to debate on it," said first Deputy Speaker of Parliament Bashe Mohamed Farah after the vote.