KAMPALA, March 4, 2025 –– To mark the International Women’s Month, theCooperator News interviewed Muthoni Njoroge, a lawyer, policy specialist and advocate of the cooperative movement through Coops Africa. Ahead of the Women in Coops Networking Luncheon, on March 7th in Nairobi, organised by Coop Africa, Muthoni spoke at length about the agenda of the event, the gender gap in the leadership of cooperatives and its implications. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
So we realised, [on] International Women’s Day, or even the whole month of March, there’s not much done to highlight the issue of gender in [the] cooperative space. And that’s how we came up with the Women in Coops Networking Luncheon. And the event has a tri-partite angle to it. There is, the women as leaders in cooperatives, the women as staff, you know, people working in cooperatives, their employees, but also women as members.
So that’s how the event is structured to bring together all these three facets of women working in cooperatives. Most of the data you’ll find out there, you’ll see they look at the women as members say, for example, maybe some SACCOs, depending on sectors, women only make up 40% in other sectors, especially agriculture, they make up 60%, but then there’s less than 10% in leadership.
For financial cooperatives, especially what we call SACCOs or credit unions, you find the work force, the employees, [are] (…) 70% (…) women. The membership is also high at 60%, but the leadership is less than 5%.
So the event is geared as to connecting the dots between the membership, the staff, and the leadership of cooperatives, from the women lens and the gender lens, and trying to have conversations that will highlight how women can move or operate within these three areas, efficiently and have meaningful impact to the cooperatives.
In whatever capacity, whether it’s leaders, whether they are employed in these cooperatives and whether they are members.
Why is it important for women to have greater influence, greater prominence in the policies and in shaping the future of cooperatives in Kenya and across the region and the world?
The reason they need to be more involved is because they’re the most impacted by the activities of cooperatives in whichever sector.
The lack of the women’s participation, especially in decision making and policy is seen by the gaps or lapses in (…) policies. If you go to agriculture, women make up over 60% of the workforce.
So when, when you draft or make policies for [the] agricultural sector without the women’s voice, then you’re not able to address their issues or address their participation.
And even factor in how they could benefit from that sector, yet (…) they’re contributing labour. They’re contributing their skills. They’re contributing finances.
So you find that at the end of the day, the way cooperatives are organised or how the benefits are drawn from cooperatives, they are very insensitive to gender(…)
And so when you make policies, (…) for example, agricultural dairy, and you say you’re collecting milk at three a.m.
What about the safety of these women who [are] going to deliver (…) milk at this point and at this hour? When you say. The board meeting is going to happen after 6 p.m. after work hours.
How many women are able to participate in those meetings at that time? When the meetings are held during work days, how many women are able to get out of work and come and join even an AGM. (…) How many women are able to leave their responsibilities at home and attend these meetings?
So you find if you leave out women in decision making, then there’s a lot of value that is lost, yet they participated in creating these values.
There’s really also the other issue of when women may contribute to the labour, in tea, coffee, or cash crops.
But the money is deposited [with] the husband or (…) the male leader of the household, yet the labour, the delivery and all these other things are done by women.
And when we look at other sectors, like transport where women are underrepresented from the labour workforce, but [are the main] users of public transport which [is] run through cooperatives [yet] ends up being (…) very insensitive to gender.
For example, there are not many wash facilities, changing rooms. The safety in public transport is not considered because the voices of women are not involved.
To what extent can policy solve such a problem and what else is needed to address these disparities?
I’ve insisted, and even in my work in policy, I’ve insisted policy is not the right approach to addressing gender issues, because gender issues are more cultural than they are policy.
And that’s why for Coops Africa, the main angle we’re approaching [with] is engagement and leadership training. Because even if you put a policy that a third of the members need to be women, and this is even adopted, then the (…) ones that end up there will struggle with the perception of tokenism.
They’re only there because of their gender, not because of what they have contributed. And that policy approach to gender issues also leads to more exclusionism.
What we need to do is build a pipeline of women who are able to articulate issues, represent the issues and not [just] women issues [but also] issues that affect the cooperative at large.
And that will require also training and a lot of behavioural science (…) and change of mind sets so that you remove the stigma or you remove the [cultural] barrier[s] to women in leadership.
And the only role of policy is creating an enabling environment. So our approach is to provide these platforms for women to be seen, for their contribution to be seen and made, and for their capacity to be amplified, such that when it becomes the season of elections, which currently in our country, the election season for SACCOs or cooperatives is going on,
then [you already] these women in mind, you have seen their work, you have their profile, it’s out there and put across.
For those who already have the skill set or have been involved in cooperatives a long time, especially mid-level management or senior management, how do we take them to the next level?
That involves more training, public speaking training, training on policies and board policies and how they can contribute and be heard,
but also positioning them in media and spaces where they are seen so that the more you are seen, you see an electioneering process is about visibility.
The more you are visible, the more you come to mind and more likely the members of the cooperative are able to see you and give you the platform to be able to run.
What would you say distinguishes women leaders from male leaders of cooperatives?
For me, when I look at women in cooperatives, I see cooperatives as, it should be the best organisation where women should be in leadership because cooperatives are part of the solidarity economy.
And women drive and do well in [the] solidarity economy rather than authoritarian or capitalistic mindset.
What women bring to the table for cooperative leadership is their social connection to anything they do.
For a woman who is leading or doing anything, they always have in mind the community and their families, their people, their churches.
And they are more likely to make decisions that benefit the community they are serving at large rather than just themselves. They know there is this perception about women.
So they are more keen to do things by the book and tick the boxes and therefore their governance becomes proper and they check the systems better than men.
Because they know there is much oversight and much too many eyes on them and someone is waiting for them to trip and bring out the issue of them being women is the reason why they are failing. (…) there is less malfeasance, there is less misappropriation because they are always very sensitive to the things they do in the boardroom.
They know they have an impact on them outside the boardroom unlike men who feel safe and secure in the systems already built in our societies, especially African societies (…)
If I make a mistake in the boardroom and I have to go to church or I have to go to a school where my children are going. This affects my life, my decisions [in] the boardroom affect my life out there.I will be ostracised, be stigmatised in the community I serve. Where cooperatives have women leaders, you find their diversification of services and products is more.
They have products on WASH, you know water and sanitation, the water tanks, borehole loans, water well loans, sanitation products, school loans because they are more involved in that society.
And so they are more likely to understand what the people need, what are they struggling with and how can our cooperative help meet this need.
And we also see that in health cooperatives, because women are most of the time the caregivers in the healthcare, even at home when someone is sick, it’s a woman who is going to be responsible for taking care of them,
then they are able to solve the problems organically from their own perspective and also bring that perspective to the boardroom.
Would you say that the culture of the communities shapes attitudes towards women leaders or women leadership in cooperatives?
The current Cooperative Bill or laws have put so much burden on [the leadership]. Like you have so many filings, you have so much responsibility [added] to [an] already overburdened woman. So the woman is more likely to not want or not be interested in the leadership itself. Because it has an additional burden to it.
So they’re just satisfied with participating and let the men who have more time in the afternoon in the evening, they have no children to take care of, let them deal with the headache of leadership.
And that’s one of the things we are trying to smoothen (…) the way cooperatives (…) are set up, especially in the 90s and 70s, a lot of duties were in (…)what now [is] still (…) called a management committee instead of a board.
And that use of [the] management committee made it have the confusion that the leaders are also the [ones] handling the day to day management, rather [than act] as an oversight board.
So the involvement and the additional work to an already strained woman who is expected by society to also provide a lot of free labour to the society to [her] family, [means] they don’t want to take on additional responsibility.
So those are some of the perceptions of such issues that you will have to deal with.
Part of your agenda will be dedicated to strategies for navigating male dominated spaces, leadership spaces within the cooperative sector. What sort of remedies are there for women or what tools are there for women in such spaces?
Thank you. So some of the things we have considered or have been studied and proven is taking a more collaborative approach with men (…)already in leadership, rather than taking a hostile or competitive approach.
And we normally say that for leadership (…) you’re more likely to be recommended to a board position or nominated if you already have the support of the outgoing or the incumbent leaders.
So pairing women leaders with the existing men in leadership is a better approach and having them work together rather than fight and men feel like they’re being edged out of the positions.(…)
Approaching from a collaborative perspective, I want to learn from you. I want to prove myself to you first before I ask for a recommendation, before you push me forward (…)
And we have a transition process rather than a quota system [where as a woman] I’m coming to take something yet you haven’t proven yourself so that it’s a natural progression of leadership.
You have learned the ropes, you have paid your dues, you have started even from the committees, s(…) earn your stripes as you go up because that’s the same process men go through in leadership.
(…) And that’s the angle we want to position based on competence and based on having been involved. (…) that’s why our approach is [targetting] the ones who [are] already in senior membership.
How do we get them into the boat in the next three years, the one who are staff members in managerial mid level [roles]
How do we push them into committees and into senior management? And then within two or three years, they’re able to go into the board level. And the women who are entering the market and the job market, how do you start mentoring them and positioning them, building the right skill set that they may need later on to say [for example] the reason I want to be [on the board], is I am a cooperative auditor.
I have certifications in systems audit and these [boards] like someone who has systems audit [skills] so the skill based rising up the ranks rather than being called and picked up and cherry picked is one of the ways to effectively navigate that system so you are seen as one of them and not someone [from] outside[…] coming into the sector.
https://thecooperator.news/greater-apac-muslim-women-call-for-special-empowerment-grant/
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