As South Africa continues to make significant strides in women’s representation in government, greater efforts are urgently needed to ensure women’s leadership extends to corporate and economic sectors.
The Department of Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities made the remarks ahead of the global commemoration of International Women’s Day (IWD) on Saturday, 8 March 2025.
International Women’s Day is a worldwide celebration of women’s achievements, as well as a powerful call to action for gender equality.
The day serves as a reminder of the invaluable contributions women make to society, while also highlighting the ongoing challenges they continue to face in various spheres of life.
This year’s theme, “Accelerate Action” encourages the global community to intensify efforts to implement strategies, allocate resources, and initiate activities that will positively impact the advancement of women everywhere.
The WID 2025 coincides with the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995) (“Beijing +30”).
The year also marks the final five years of the 2030 United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), underscoring the urgency of advancing gender equality globally.
The department emphasised that with the right action and support, positive progress can be made for women across the globe.
“South Africa continues to make strides in women’s representation in government, with women making up 46% of Parliament and 43% of the Cabinet. However, greater efforts are needed to ensure women’s leadership in corporate and economic sectors.
“More work should be done to accelerate equal representation, as women remain underrepresented in high-income sectors and continue to face significant wage gaps. To bridge the gap, there is a need to demonstrate actions to stronger policies on financial inclusion, access to credit, and workplace protections for women,” the department said on Friday.
The department highlighted the importance of equipping women with the necessary tools and resources to start and grow businesses, manage household finances, and invest in their futures.
These efforts will strengthen their voices in decisions affecting them, and also help narrow gender gaps in financial access, while endorsing broader social and economic equality.
In alignment with the Government of National Unity’s (GNU) priorities for the 7th administration, which has identified rapid, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth for all South Africans, the department emphasised that these priorities align closely with the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) agenda for women’s rights.
The WEF focuses on closing gender gaps in economic participation, pay, and leadership.
“The South African Constitution champions the achievement of equality, including gender equality, throughout its provisions, particularly section 9 of the Constitution, which creates a basis for the obligation of the public sector, the private sector and civil society to eliminate and remedy gender, race and social inequalities,” the department said. – SAnews.gov.za
Watch a SA to champion women’s leadership on International Women’s Day related video:
Stunning South Africa:
https://africa.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Field%20Office%20Africa/Images/News/2021/03/Chief%20Justice%20Maeza.jpg
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Fire Bite
I saw a quote by Nelson Mandela on MyZA – can you tell me what date did he die?
Fl00D
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.