Gender equality is a fundamental human right but remains a distant dream for many women worldwide. The United Nations’ HeforShe is a solidarity campaign for the advancement of gender equality. Its goal is to achieve equality by encouraging both genders to partake as agents of change and take action against negative stereotypes and behaviors, faced by people with feminine personalities/genders. Grounded in the idea that gender inequality is an issue that affects all people—socially, economically and politically—it seeks to actively involve men and boys in a movement that was originally conceived as “a struggle for women by women”.

The HeForShe movement is gathering momentum globally as a cohort of select leaders from both the public and private sectors join the drive and stand out as visionaries on gender equality. On behalf of Standard Bank Group, Chief Executive Sim Tshabalala, has become one of the global “Thematic Champions” in the HeForShe movement. These leaders have committed to implement game-changing policies and concrete actions towards gender parity.

“Achieving gender equity is a moral duty, a business imperative, and just plain common sense. Women embody half the world’s talent, skill and energy – and more than half of its purchasing power. So every sensible business leader must be committed to achieving gender equity in their company and to contributing to gender equity in the societies in which we operate,” says Tshabalala.
In the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Gender Gap report, it is estimated that it will take more the 217 years to achieve workplace equality after gender parity took a step backwards in the past year.

Concrete commitments made by Standard Bank Group in order to bring about tangible change include reaching parity in executive positions and to improve the representation of women in executive positions from its current 32% to 40% by 2023. Another is to lift the representation of women on the Board from 22% to 33% by 2021.

Standard Bank is also committed to increasing the representation of women Chief Executives in its Africa Regions network from 10% to 20% by 2021, while Standard Bank South Africa will improve the representation of women in executive positions from the current 35% to 40% by 2021.

While progress has been made in certain countries in Africa to close gender gaps, others remain behind the curve. Namibia and South Africa both score in the Top 20 in the WEF global report on gender equality – after closing 78% to 76% of their gender gaps – but Sub-Saharan Africa still displays a wider range of gender gap outcomes than practically any other region.

Launched by Emma Watson and the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2014, HeForShe represented the first global effort to actively include men and boys as change agents for gender equality at a time when most gender programs were only targeting women.
It was the beginning of a trend that only seems more relevant as stories emerge of sexual abuse and harassment suffered by women in the workplace.

The Sustainable Development Goals call for gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, but campaigns such as last weekend’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women highlight that there is much work to be done. The U.N. recently reported that nearly 20 percent of women surveyed said they had experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner in the previous year.

Originally conceived as a one-year media campaign to raise awareness about the role of men and boys in gender equality, the HeForShe website garnered more than 100,000 male supporters in its first three days. These males affirmed their commitment to the cause by declaring themselves “HeForShe” and saying that gender equality is not just a women’s issue. Early adopters included a clutch of celebrities and politicians, including former U.S. President Barack Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and actor Matt Damon.
Since then, 1.6 million men have signed up online, including at least one man in every country of the world, and its “Impact Champions” include the presidents of Rwanda, Ghana, Malawi, and Indonesia, among several other heads of state. The issue has also been the subject of 2 billion conversations on social media.

But HeForShe is not without its critics. Many in the gender equality community say they would like to see the movement make more concrete demands of its male champions, and have called for civil society to play a greater role in developing and monitoring the movement.

“Now is a good moment for reflection and discussion about HeForShe, which has achieved high visibility, clear successes, and also drawbacks,” said Gary Barker, co-founder of Promundo, an NGO working to engage men and boys for gender equality, which has advised the HeForShe campaign since its launch three years ago.

“Having that amount of reach and star power on board means there’s huge potential, but we need to harness it before the movement loses momentum … [and] we need to push UN Women to go further and ask more of men,” he added.

First lady Esther Lungu has called on men in the country to care of their respective families thereby help foster strong family bonds and values. Mrs. Lungu said it is disheartening to see children drop out of school because they have been neglected by their fathers.

ZANIS reports that the First lady said this at Kafwanka primary school, Fibalala ward, in Milenge district.Mrs. Lungu also urged women to continue working hard in order to be counted in society adding that they should not feel behind men but rather at par.

The first lady later made donations of ten iron sheets, blankets, rice, chlorine and over K 10,000 to three women’s clubs namely Tubalange, Tulombeko and Natusambilile. On receiving the donation, Natusambilile Chairperson Rosemary Chibuye thanked Mrs. Lungu for the wonderful gesture.Mrs. Chibuye said the donation will go a long way in uplifting their standards of living.

Earlier, Milenge Constituency Member of Parliament Mwansa Mbulakulima assured residents that government will link the cassava farmers to the market.Mr. Mbulakulima said government has heard the cries of farmers who harvested their produce with hopes of being linked to potential buyers.He said plans are underway to ensure the farmers sell their cassava and earn income to sustain their livelihood.

Mrs. Lungu said that President Lungu supports her work because he too wants to see development reach all corners of the country.

She says people in rural areas are looking up to their elected leaders to transform their lives.

Mrs. Lungu was speaking when she addressed hundreds of people in Chipete ward of Chembe district which she visited this morning on her continued tour of Luapula province.

She further called on civil society organisations to spread their activities to the remote parts of the country.

Mrs. Lungu said it is sad that in some places she has been to, there is no single NGO or civil society organisation.

She said civil society organisations should supplement government efforts in delivering social services to the people.

The first lady also interacted with pupils at Chipete primary school and donated food and groceries for the girls.

She also donated hygiene packs and bicycles to Chipete rural health center and gave out 5,000 Kwacha to each of the seven women cooperative groups.

Police in Kitwe have questioned National Democratic Congress (NDC) National Youth Chairperson Charles Kabwita over a WhatsApp message purported to be impersonating National Development Planning minister Alexander Chiteme.

The Copperbelt Police commissioner Charity Katanga says Police are now looking for a Mr. Alexander Chalwe who is also on the same WhatsApp group for allegedly posting messages impersonating Mr. Chiteme.

Ms Katanga told ZNBC News in Kitwe that the messages posted on the group indicate that Mr. Chiteme has been leaking confidential information from state house to the WhatsApp group administered by Mr. Kabwita when in fact not.

But Mr. Kabwita, who spoke to ZNBC News at Kitwe Central Police Station after being questioned, accused Mr. Chiteme of having reported him to the Police.

The former Chimwemwe Ward Councillor said the WhatsApp group where he is an administrator has over 260 members and he does not know every member of the group.

Earlier, Nkana Constituency PF member of Parliament Alexander Chiteme reported National Democratic Congress national Youth Chairman Charles Kabwita for what he has called impersonation. According to Chiteme, Kabwita was impersonating his name on a WhatsApp blog to post anti-government statements.

Chiteme, on Monday October 8, 2018 reported Kabwita at Kitwe Central Police. According to police, Chiteme has accused Kabwita of using his name in a WhatsApp group to insult State House. The police say Chiteme complained about a WhatsApp group member using his name to post anti-state house statements.

But Kabwita said Chiteme was a joker who has failed to work.

“Yes, yesterday on Monday, I received a phone call from a Mr Harry Mukuni an officer at Kitwe Central Police. I was told to report at 15:00 hours and like a law abiding citizen I went to the police though they kept me for over an hour and half before their questioning. I went with our Secretary General (NDC) honorable Mwenya Musenge,” Kabwita said.

“There is a blog called ‘Top Secret pa Zed’ where am the chief administrator of the group. In that group someone has impersonated Chiteme and has been posting statements that were putting State House in disrepute. Honorable Chiteme then reported me to the police.”

He explained that he has no control of who joins the blog because joining is posted through links.

“I gave a statement to the police. Now I have no control of who joins the blog. I can post the link in different WhatsApp groups for anyone to join. So how do I know who has joined? There are a lot of people in the blog and I don’t know them all. The police wanted to find out if I can help with investigations, but I have refused because I font have control and they have the number of the said. Let them use the same number to go to ZICTA to find out who the person is.”