Goal 3. Rwanda

Goal 3: Rwanda
Jason DePecol, Siham Elhamoumi, Kate Mooney, Kelsey Morse and Amanda Rohdenburg

           Millennium Goal Three is to Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women can largely be viewed as a success story for Rwanda. The approach that Rwanda took to achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment is based on three major pillars; established political will and support, appropriate mechanisms within government and society at large, and the existence of strong independent women’s movement/Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) (Ansoms 2012).

            Rwanda has practically achieved this goal by increasing female gross enrollment at primary school level, in an increase in the literacy of young women from ages  15-24 year olds. In 2005, the literacy rate of fifteen to twenty-four year old females was 76.8%, compared to a literacy rate of 76.9% for males in the same age group (UNDP 2013). Despite making excellent progress in primary education, economic and social constraints have contributed to drop-out and low enrollment of girls at upper secondary and higher levels of education. One way that women’s presence in secondary schooling can be increase would be to continue to increase the number of government and private tertiary institutions, technical schools, and universities that provide access to women. Under the current system, women largely still play important roles in the family and home. This can contribute to a lack of will to continue on in education. There is also a significant lack of funding specifically for women in school. Providing scholarships or funds for young girls could significantly change the numbers that complete their schooling (UNDP 2013).

A woman carries home groceries from the local
market. Photo Cred: Jason De Pecol.

            Although women in the paid labor force in Rwanda primarily work in agriculture and other informal areas, the female employment rate in Rwanda is slowly increasing, with the growing recognition of the central role women play in economic and social development and in the government. Still more can be done as disparities continue in career development, employment status, pay, and the fact that women are constrained by the limited change in the gender division of labor in the household.

    A major achievement towards gender equality in Rwanda can be seen in how inclusive their government has become. The national government has made gender parity in the legislature a top priority. In line with the provisions of the 2003 Constitution of Rwanda, a target was set forth to ensure women constituted of at least 30% of all representatives in the Parliamentary elections that year. Today, women hold 57% of Rwanda’s Parliamentary seats making this the first country to have women represent over fifty percent of their parliamentary system (UNDP 2007). In both Advisory council and council committees women have exceeded 30% and in a few areas of government women are more represented than men. One major reason the advisory council and council committees have been implemented in the country to avoid any further conflict. Post-genocide the country decided that a strong central government would not be favorable, so they instituted a number of checks in adapting different boards and ministries to control various sectors (UNDP 2007). Women’s inclusion in every aspect of government is important in that they can help implement effective policies at the local levels, nationally, and even internationally (Kanyarukiga 2006). 

   Much of this commitment to women’s inclusion in government is measured through the 2009 Social Watch Gender Equity Index; Rwanda received the second highest score, with only Sweden had more women’s inclusion (UNDP 2013). The significant progress that the country has made in gender equity is incredible. To come from the time of the genocide where women were severely subjected to ranking internationally as a success story for women in government is truly amazing. A significant part of this improvement was the implementation of a Ministry for Gender and Family Promotion (Goodfellow 2013). This serves as a gender monitoring office with a commitment to gender based financing, and more recently the office has taken control of outreach programs for prevention and awareness of gender based violence. While great strides have been made for women in the government, gender based violence in the home remains a significant roadblock to total gender equity in the country (Hayman 2007).

                In order to completely achieve Goal Three more needs to be done to help provide gender training as well as centers for greater understanding of the implications of gender based violence. Another way that gender equity can be improved is by creating more funds for girls in primary as well as secondary schools. It is essential to promote the achievement of gender parity in the private sector, capacity building for women leaders especially at local government level, and providing gender and women studies at high levels of education (Lofgren et al. 2009).