Stepping up for Political Gender Equality

Good governance refers to all process of governing and includes a bottom- up process and gender equality of participation in decision making. It becomes meaningful as a system operating on democratic principles with values and practices that stress people¿s empowerment and participation, gender equality, legitimacy, transparency, accountability and effectiveness.The Zambia MDGs progress report 2013 indicates that Zambia has continued to perform poorly with respect to female political representation. Women in 2015 held a low proportion of seats in both local councils (6.3 percent) and parliament (13.9 percent) and have continued to do so even after the 2016 General Elections. The study aims at finding out Patriotic Front, United Party for National Development, Rainbow and Forum for Democracy and Development parties¿ policies and perspectives on the adoption of a gender quota and reserved seats in Zambia and proposes a working mechanism for increasing female political representation.