President Paul Kagame co-chaired a meeting on “Women in Power” over the weekend. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the 33rd ordinary session of the Executive Council of the African Union (AU) that begun Sunday in Mauritania. Women empowerment is a challenge for many countries in Africa. However, some countries perform worse than others. It is refreshing to see the continent working together to make women empowerment a priority. The AU is continually becoming an influential body. For it to make issues that are key to ordinary people a priority will only make it stronger. Now that the discussions on Women empowerment are taking center stage, concrete action must follow as well. The leaders ought to set targets and report on their implementation. They should hold each other accountable to make sure that no country is left behind. For instance, individual countries can revisit their laws to make sure they provide for women to hold positions of power. If you put more women in decision making positions at various levels, it is the community that benefits, not only the women. African countries are striving to be better and many of the countries are making headway. Issues such as equality will only expedite advancement efforts by the continent.
