Project launched to mentor women in public sector

The Equal Opportunities Commission and a consortium of civil society organisations have launched a project to address the challenges of women working in the public sector.

The Women in Public Sector in Uganda Project is being piloted until October 2020.

Although some achievements have been made towards improving the status of Uganda's working women, there are still few women in decision making positions in the public sector.

Speaking to Patricia Munabi, the executive director of the Forum for Women in Democracy she revealed there are few women in leadership in the public sector.

“So a lot of focus has been paid to the political leadership but not enough attention has been paid to women in the public sector. The other interesting thing that we found is that in the past, many women used to be secretaries, cleaners and so on increasingly those roles are being taken off by men,"she said.

Anna Grace Akot, a civil servant working with Gulu district local government said such challenges are mostly about mind set.

Solome Nakaweesi, a gender consultant, said the Equal Opportunities Commission has partnered with consortium of women rights organisations to launch the women in public sector project set to help change this kind of narrative.

She said this project will start of with one year pilot which will involve teaching the communities to address the blocking of women from holding positions of leadership in the public sector.