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Women in Governance

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Submitted By mery
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Governance and leadership in general is a process by which people determine their destiny, on the other hand good governance or leadership lays emphasis on accountability, efficiency and responsiveness to the needs of the direct environment of the organization being governed. This involves identification of leaders to guide those being governed to fulfill their vision and mission while guarding against mismanagement of the same. The identification does not lay preference on any gender but over the years, the issue of gender diversity in business organizations and public administration has received increasing attention in both the academic literature and the popular press. The question has been whether greater participation of women in boards, top management and even in the political arena can be directly associated to better financial performance in an organization and on a macro level that participation at all levels impact positively on the economy.
The mandate to coordinate policy formulation and integration in Kenya in regards to gender has been given to the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Development. Various policy documents have been prepared towards finding a lasting solution to the issue of gender disparities in the work place. The National Commission on Gender and Development (NCGD) has been operational since 2004 and was formulated to enable the Ministry to carry out its mandate. Its mandate includes legal reform, advocacy, providing advice on gender issues to government and coordinating the various government agencies’ efforts on gender issues. A survey carried out by Business Woman Magazine (2008) shows that the public sector has a higher number of women in executive level positions than the private sector. Although the public sector has very few senior level female employees, there are more women at the executive level positions than in the

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