Women’s empowerment role in leadership, Kyengera Town Council

Abstract

The paper assesses the role of women empowerment in leadership and governance in Kyengera Town Council, Wakiso district, Uganda, focusing at how can women’s participation in leadership and governance be enhanced? How does women’s participation in leadership and governance enhance sustainable development? The paper employs a case study design using both quantitative and qualitative data collection approaches. A sample of 27 respondents was selected using Slovene’s formula from 30 women in leadership positions in Kyengera Town Council. Data was collected by the use of questionnaires and interviews was edited, cleaned coded and entered into SPSS for analysis to generate descriptive statistics for interpretation and analysis of the results. Findings indicate diversification of talents of women, support for women in local elections, societal awareness of women’s leadership on civic education, create cross-party women caucuses, and build capacity for female leaders as the ways in which women’s participation in leadership and governance could be enhanced.
Further, it was reported that, women’s participation in leadership and governance could enhance sustainable development through, sustainable resource management, inclusion of women in political participation, promotion of women’s participation in governance and the removal of barriers that marginalize women, and dialogue and networking. The paper concludes that involving women in leadership and governance is a mechanism to achieving sustainable development. The paper recommends that, government through inclusive policies should embrace women’s interests in all leadership and governance platforms, provide rights to and ownership of property to women for sustainable development, and local governments should place women at the forefront of decision making to ensure sustainable leadership and governance. The paper contributes to the avenues in which women empowerment enhance leadership positions in decision making.