Dar es Salaam:  Recent pronouncements by President Jakaya Kikwete that the government is working on plans to adopt the 2008 Southern African Development Community (Sadc) protocol that calls for at least 50 per cent women representation in parliament are re-assuring. But the challenge is whether or not it will make a significant difference in the lives of ordinary Tanzanian women.

The situation on the ground, defining the lives of the majority women in the country, will make this the most important and challenging fact facing women who are and will find themselves in decision-making positions, should this protocol come into effect.

Like in several other African countries, women constitute a little over half of the total population in Tanzania, yet anecdotal evidence suggests that they are still the poorest among the poor in the country.

Patterns of occupational distribution suggest that they form a much higher proportion of the unemployed; and a significant number, nearly half in rural areas, according to previous studies, remain illiterate and engaged in hard labour.

In health, the situation is no better. The majority women still suffer the pains of poverty. For instance, the greatest increase in HIV/Aids prevalence is believed to be with young women, and teenage pregnancies are still the order of the day, especially in rural areas.

The maternal mortality rate of about 950 deaths for every 100,000 births is still too high for an economically and politically stable country like Tanzania. In short, women remain the ones with less land, less opportunities, less experience, less formal education and higher dependency ratios.What does this all mean for women in public policy-making positions? Definitely there is much more work to done.

Unfortunately, most of the current female MPs have not been able to significantly use parliament to initiate debate and policies that can change the lives of the majority women in the country, a report entitled ‘Do they work for us?' which was released two weeks ago by a local NGO, ‘Uwazi InfoShop', suggests.

It shows that women are slightly less active than their male counterparts in the august House. The survey covered 17 formal parliamentary sessions from November 2005 to November 2009, and focused on MPs' performance.

Only five female MPs out of 85 made it to the survey's top 20. One would say this not a satisfactory finding. In several countries around the world, parliament has become an effective vehicle for supporting the cause of women. It can and must be the same for us here.  

Women's direct engagement in public decision-making has long been seen not just as a matter of democratic justice. It is a means of ensuring better government accountability to women. It is a means to ensure better public sector responsiveness to women's needs, and it must be linked to gender-sensitive good governance reforms.

Today there are more women in world governments and parliaments than ever before, and one's expectation is that they generally contribute to stronger attention to women issues.

*  By Daniel Muhau