The Southern African Development Community (SADC) says although the region has recorded progress in women participation in politics, it still remains a challenge as first past the post electoral system which inhibits women’s participation in politics is still being used among SADC member states.

The SADC Acting Head of Gender Unit Elizabeth Kakukuru disclosed this during a media briefing held at the Gaborone International Convention Centre (GICC) in Botswana today.

Ms. Kakukuru said the first past the post electoral system is difficult for women who have to stand against men who at most times tend to have an upper hand as compared to them.

She also cited the factor of cultural norms as another hindrance that continues to render women as poor participants in political leadership.

“The increase in Gender Based Violence cases for certain countries is also contributing to this situation, “cited Ms. Kakukuru.

Ms. Kakukuru stated that although the region has recorded progress in women participation in politics, only a few SADC member states have recorded beyond 40 per cent, which is still below the SADC Gender attainment participation of 50 per cent women empowerment.

She however observed that although some member states have not done well in enhancing women empowerment in political leadership, they have made positive strides in public services.

Ms. Kakukuru further added that in some quarters, SADC countries have been engaging women in conflict resolution assignments which have yielded a positive record for the region.

“A number of women have been seen participating in peace keeping assignments,” she illustrated.

According to Ms. Kakukuru, targets set under the Gender protocol among SADC member states is that by 2015, member states are to abolish the minority status of women and that with the 50-50 target , no member state has yet achieved it as the nearest for the region stands at 47 per cent.

Additionally, addressing the gender stereo types on education is currently at 23 per cent and that member states to reduce gender based violence by half in 2015.

President Edgar Lungu has launched the 2015 National Youth Policy and Action Plan on Empower and Employment which he says must result in the creation of more than 500,000 jobs for the youth by the end of 2016.President Lungu described it as a momentous and historic day for the government as the launch of the 2015 Youth Policy is the first ever action plan for Youth empowerment and employment.

President Lungu said the Launch of the two documents marks an end of an era of politics that promotes handouts and rhetoric that succeeds only on scoring short term political mileage at the expense of long term sustainable national and youth development goals.

Speaking during the launch of the two documents in Lusaka this morning, President Lungu said the 500,000 jobs will be created through implementation of the national apprenticeship and internship schemes which should create employment for the unskilled youth within participating companies, expansion of low interest credit facilities targeting new and growing youth-led enterprises, and provision of ongoing business support services including mentorship to youth-led businesses.

The President has directed all line ministries and sectors to offer preferential treatment to qualified youth -led enterprises in awarding contracts and in the public procurement process.
He also directed the Ministry of youth and sport to be pro-active in ensuring that there is proper coordination of youth empowerment programmes across all sectors.

President Lungu said he expects the Ministries of Finance and Youth and Sport to work together on the modalities of achieving this.

The Head of State has since directed all State and non State actors to immediately start mainstreaming youth empowerment at all levels.
He has also reiterated his call to the youth to reflect on their obligations, responsibilities and contributions towards national development, as government continues to create opportunities for youth empowerment.

Speaking earlier, UN Zambia Resident Coordinator Janet Rogan commended the Zambian government for launching the National Youth Policy and Action Plan to coincide with the International Youth Day which falls today under the theme “Youth Civic Engagement”.

And Youth and Sport Minister Vincent Mwale has observed that by personally officiating at the launch of the Youth Policy and Action Plan, President Lungu has demonstrated his commitment to addressing issues affecting youths in the country.

Mutale John Nshimbi, alias DJ Blocks, is Zambia’s hippest disc-spinner – and that’s official!

The Lusaka-based resident DJ at Club Vegas has emerged winner of the 2015 Miller SoundClash Zambia competition and is now heading for Las Vegas in the US.The Miller Soundclash mixing extravaganza aimed to find the country’s best DJ to represent Zambia in the worldwide final in US clubbing capital Las Vegas in September.

In addition to the winner, Millier Soundclash announced Julias Mwewa also known as Sebastien Dutch, a full-time radio DJ on Rock FM as runner up in the competition.

Last Saturday’s event, which took place at the Web nightclub in Lusaka, was the culmination of a five-day programme that saw six DJ’s chosen as finalists to battle it out for the coveted top prize.

The six finalists were DJ Ken, DJ Gavino, DJ Blocks, DJ Sebastien Dutch from Lusaka while DJ Fox and DJ Quake came from Kitwe.

DJ Blocks will go on to experience the sizzling hotspot of Las Vegas for a supercharged high roller experience, capturing the bright lights of elite clubbing scene in Las Vegas and a chance to be the ultimate winner of the prestigious 2015 Miller SoundClash DJ competition.

The DJs were judged on a series of criteria, including mic use, flare, mixing ability and crowd appeal. The judges are DJ Rico Ricardo, DJ Kevin Van Boxtel, and Mushot Katayi.
The Miller international DJ search competition seeks to discover local talent and gives talented DJ’s the experience of a lifetime.

Miller’s Global Music Sound Clash is the ultimate international global DJ search competition that opens entries to all DJs globally hosted by Mix Cloud, a global music streaming service which offers a blanket music license and can legally host DJ mixes.

This is to just let you know that the upgrade and restructuring of the site has taken longer than we anticipated as some things went horribly wrong and had to be scaled back.  The Site is currently in a reasonable functional state. We are still optimising the speed and responsiveness of the site. The comments system is still operating  in basic mode and we are yet to start customising and optimising it to bring back your FLAGS  and VOTES

Couple of issues have emerged thus far:

1. People are seeing the old cached site in their browsers
2. Others are seeing the message ( This Web Page has a redirect loop ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS) especially those using Google Chrome.

Solution for the first issue is to force your browser to get a fresh copy by holding down the SHIFT Key and pressing the RE-LOAD arrow or button on your browser at the same time.

Solution for the second problem is to just clear your cookies as suggested by your browser details.

We hope this fixes the issues.

Again we sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this is causing and we would like to thank you for your support to LT.

Obviously people struggling to get to the site won’t see this meaages, but we are hoping they will get the feed through either our facebook page facebook.com/lusakatimes or twitter page on twitter.com/lusakatimes or even through the rss feed.

Please help us spread the word and use this thread to give us feedback so far. As usual, none of your feedback will be censored, just don’t use the banned vulgar words. The system will take care of your views and throw them into the trash bin and we shall lose the good parts of your contribution.

We shall make another update once we feel that all the changes we are implementing are complete.

LT team

COMMERCE, Trade and Industry Minister Margaret Mwanakatwe says poverty can only be defeated by promoting entrepreneurship among the locals.

Ms Mwanakatwe said foreign investments were only useful in supplementing local efforts.

Ms Mwanakatwe said the Patriotic Front (PF) Government is focused on developing a vibrant micro, small and medium enterprise sector by providing ease and cheap cost of doing business in the country.

“Government is aware that economic development can only be achieved if the local businesses are empowered and it is important for businesses to register with PACRA as it is easier to loan out money to a business entity than an individual,” Ms Mwanakatwe said.

Ms Mwanakatwe said this yesterday during the official opening of the Patents and Companies Registration Agency (PACRA) branch in Kabwe.

She said local business entities could only grow if they were recognised and registered.

Ms Mwanakatwe said Commercial Banks and other financial institutions could only extend credit finance to businesses that were registered hence the need for local businesses to register their business with PACRA.

She added that Central Province had a lot of youths running businesses in various sectors and needed to be encouraged to formalize their businesses by registering with PACRA.

Ms Mwanakatwe urged PACRA to devise programmes targeted primarily at promoting youth entrepreneurship and intellectual property administration activities as a tool for economic development.

Meanwhile, chairperson of PACRA Board William Nyirenda said the agency would before the end of the year introduce on-line business registration systems.

“I want to take this opportunity to inform our existing and would be clients that by the end of the year, we will be introducing internet registration, this development will be a milestone and will place PACRA ahead of many registries not only in Africa but globally,” Mr Nyirenda said.

Mr Nyirenda urged business communities in Kabwe and the country at large to give PACRA all the necessary support and ensure that they file their annual returns as required by law.

Central Province Minister Davis Chisopa said he was proud of the statutory bodies which have continued striving to work towards reducing the cost of doing business.

Energy Minister Christopher Yaluma said the country has started importing 100 mega watts of electricity from Mozambique to help mitigate the power deficit the country is currently experiencing.

Mr. Yaluma also said talks have advanced of the possible import of more power from other countries that have a surplus to cushion the power deficit.

He said the government is also planning to construct more power generation plants to cushion the current power deficit.

Mr Yaluma was speaking in an interview with journalists in Kasempa.

The Minister said government is aware that some traders are exploiting the Zambian people by selling generators at highs costs.

Mr. Yaluma said it is regrettable that unsuspecting citizens are being exploited even after government waived duty on power products.

The Minister however, said the power utility ZESCO, will soon start selling power products at a cheaper cost.