International Women’s Day 2021 — Things to know about gender and corruption
By: Anti-Corruption Resource Centre
Tags: Gender, Anti Corruption, International Womens Day, Sdgs, Corruption

On the 110th International Women’s Day the theme is #ChooseToChallenge. This is a timely one, given the negative and disproportionate impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on women.

It is vitally important that pandemic response plans are updated and revised to incorporate both gender and anti-corruption considerations (Photo: Freepik, Copyright)

Written by

Monica Kirya — Senior Adviser at U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre and a lawyer specialising in governance and development. Kirya leads U4’s work on public service delivery and gender.

and

Matthew Gichohi — Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen, Norway. His research focuses on questions of identity and the attitudinal/behavioral norms it elicits in individuals seeking political inclusion and representation. He has examined how gender and material endowments interact to affect women’s political ambitions and electoral prospects.

Approximately forty percent of working women occupy roles in industries that are hardest hit. This has also increased already existing inequalities in unpaid care and domestic work. Covid-19 is also making women more vulnerable to corruption. Transparency International reports that women in Zimbabwe are being sexually extorted for access to water and in Nigeria, police arrest women for minor COVID-19 infractions and sexually abuse them while they’re in custody. U4 has pointed out that most governments’ pandemic response plans and policies do not consider issues of corruption, transparency and accountability enough, and researchers have observed that many governments have not included women in their Covid-19 task forces. It is vitally important that pandemic response plans are updated and revised to incorporate both gender and anti-corruption considerations. If we fail to heed this year’s theme and correct these anomalies, there is a significant risk that Covid-19 will reverse progress already made towards gender equality.

Celebrating women in public office

Despite the negative outlook, the past few months have brought some good news concerning appointments of women to important public offices. There is substantial evidence that closing the political gender gap can help to reduce corruption, so we celebrate the appointments and work of the women highlighted below.

Laura McAllister hopes to be part of the new governance FIFA structure that sheds its previous corrupt reputation.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala became the first African woman to lead the World Trade Organisation.

UN special envoy for Libya, Stephanie Williams’ report is due on March 15. The report looks into accusations of interim Prime Minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, bribing members of the political dialogue forum for their votes.

In another first, women now make up the majority of members in the African Union’s Operating commission. This comes at a time when the African Union is under pressure to address administrative corruption and abuses that include sexual harassment of women employees.

Gender and anti-corruption community of practice

If you are a gender or anti-corruption activist, practitioner, or researcher, we would like to interest you in our soon-to-be established International Gender, Inclusion and Anti-Corruption Community of Practice. The aim of the community of practice is to bring together as many people as possible who are working in these areas to improve cooperation and strengthen attention to gender and inclusion in anti-corruption efforts worldwide. We will be sending out more information in due course. In the meantime, send an email to monica.kirya@cmi.no if you are intrigued!

Women, gender and power in fiction

In case you have some extra time, join the Vox Book Club as they discuss Naomi Alderman’s The Power, which won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2017. The book imagines an alternative universe in which women have acquired new super-powers, overturning established gender hierarchies.

Here is some other corruption related news we thought you might find interesting:

Gender and corruption online course

We invite staff of U4 partner agencies and their implementing partners in civil society and government to sign up for our popular gender and corruption online course. Spaces are running out fast, so be sure to get onto our waiting list. The course will run from 12–30 April and 3–22 October 2021. Sign up on the link above if you work for one of our partner agencies, or contact course@u4.no.

For more resources, visit the U4 gender and corruption topic page.