6. Decision Making

Government has enhanced the participation of women in politics and decision making at national and local levels through both legislative and administrative measures. Women's participation in decision making can be measured in terms of the number of women elected to occupy local authorities, parliamentary and higher government positions.

6.1 Local Authorities

Table 6.1 shows selected categories of women in decision making as district level personnel.

Table 6.1: Number of District Local Authority Personnel by Category

Source: MGCD Resource Centre

* as of July 1997

Overall, the number of women at district level in top decision making positions is still very low compared to that of men. Results further show that no woman has ever been elected as LCV chairperson since 1994. This shows that at the local level, women and the community at large have internalised traditional attitudes that public life is men's domain and in any case are often illiterate and over burdened with household responsibility.

6.2 Top Decision Making Positions in Uganda

Results on the number of women and men in top decision making positions in Uganda, (table 6.2) disclose that, the overall number of women in political participation and decision making in Uganda is still low compared to that of men. Overall, the proportion of women is less than 20 percent for the entire period. The trend however shows that there has been a slight improvement for the period 1995 to 1997 (Fig 6.1) The data also reveals that minor positive trends in women positions are realised for the categories of The Cabinet and Judiciary.

Fig 6.1: Women and Men in Top Decision Making Positions

The data also shows that the number of women parliamentarians is still low compared to that of men. Although the 1996 Parliamentary elections show that out of the 896 persons vying for 214 seats in Uganda, only 32 were women and 8 of them made it to parliament.⁸

⁸ Interim Electoral Commission

This difference could be further explained by the fact that, competing for parliamentary positions requires a lot of financial resources which women may lack. Furthermore, the fact that women took long to join the law profession may account for the lower number of women than men as members classified in the Judiciary category.

Table 6.2: Women and Men in Top Decision Making Positions in Uganda (Numbers)

Source MGCD Resource Centre

* As of July 1997