Women have been encouraged to fully participate in Botswana’s development in order for the country to achieve an equal future in a COVID-19 world.

Speaking on the occasion of International Women’s Day yesterday, Minister of Nationality, Immigration and Gender Affairs, Ms Anna Mokgethi said women should not perceive COVID-19 as a barrier but an opportunity to progress and advance through the use of digital platforms.

She said women’s economic participation and opportunity remained a challenge in achieving gender parity.

Ms Mokgethi said women continued to face greater hurdles than men in almost all spheres of life.

“For instance, in the economic sphere women are in most cases disadvantaged in terms of access to finance, assets, technology, good-quality jobs, and peer-to-peer networks,” she said.

She observed that though the number of women in senior management positions in Botswana had risen over the years, especially in the public sector, structural barriers to women’s leadership in the workforce, particularly in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, were still strongly in place.

“The reality is that women face significant barriers to progress at every stage of their careers, including difficulties posed by juggling work and family life,” she stated.

She said currently women made up just 11 per cent of the National Assembly and 18 per cent at council level.

Quoting 2019 figures, women in the public sector accounted for 35 per cent with female permanent secretaries and 45 per cent for directors.