Women have created thousands of vibrant and visionary organisations of their own advocating women leaders to determine the political, economic and social progress of humanity.

The 1995, Beijing Platform for Action, the outcome of the UN Fourth Conference on Women, have pushed many governments to promote gender equality and support women would-be leaders.
Despite these advances towards recognition of women’s political, economic and social equality with men this write-up would attempt to reflect why women leaders are still marginalised in Cameroon.
To solve the many problems facing us, Cameroon needs to be able to draw from the whole pool of talents available to it, both men and women.

Cameroon, to say the least, has not produced a woman in leadership position that has gained international recognition. There are various forms of women leaders the world had produced. Some women have inherited leadership roles by virtue of decent.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth of England and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands fall under this category. There are those who are elected into office by status and influence; Benazir Bhutto, daughter of a previous Prime Ministers, Cori Aquino, widow of a former President.

There are yet some other women leaders of popular movements operating with little formal authority; Wangari Maathai, leader of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya. Winnie Mandela of the African National Congress fought relentlessly against apartheid. Some others have given men a run of their money by contesting and winning political position; Eileen Sirleaf- Johnson of Liberia and Rose Rugendop of Tazania. Some women made it through humbleness in religious sphere; Mother Therese of Calcutta-India is a good example.

At the dawn of the new millennium, there is a wave of invigorating air sweeping across the Africa continent, where African women are awaking from slumber, yet Cameroon is still to make its mark in the sand of history. Why has Cameroon not been unable to produce women leaders of international repute? Many do not want to be involved in politics.

They nursed stereotyped assumptions that politics is “a man’s game”. They prefer to stay behind to decorate halls during political meetings or cook food instead of gunning for decision-making positions. A few who have dared in politics have played the same like men.
Many male politicians are interested in the “politics of the stomach” and women have followed suit. It is an aberration to find women in the same prison cells incarcerated for charges of corruption and embezzlement. Others are very vindictive and exhibit chauvinistic tendencies that make them appear like gorgons in public.
Some would–be women politicians have been frustrated because of poor candidate selection procedures within political parties. Men exhibit egoistic tendencies, thereby playing dirty tricks against would–be women leaders. They expect these same men to “strategically position women” in position of authorities instead of challenging the status-quo.

They prefer to remain complacent with the existing order. Another obstacle women need to overcome is insufficiency of educated women. Some women lack the status, confidence and dignity due to insufficient numbers of educated women. There are also a few role models for aspiring women politicians to emulate.

They are separated by geography and ethnicity, often fighting lonely battles in the face of entrenched male opposition and unjust electoral practices. Women are perceived as mothers, hence seldom seen in decision-making positions at community levels.

They simply lack self-confidence and assertiveness.

While countries like South Africa have instituted policies for women’s political advancement, the Cameroon government has been accused of being slow in taking affirmative action for attaining the 30 % proportion of women in the National Assembly.

The failure of policies for women’s advancement has been a serious handicap in producing women leaders in Cameroon. We are on the eve of a presidential election billed for 2011. Women should use this opportunity to reflect on how to overcome the cultural and structural barriers that impede them from holding leadership positions.

What we should now do is to encourage more women to come up and take active role in politics. We also need to help change the culture and systems in politics by carrying out aggressive media campaign to help politics to become women-friendly. There is also a need to increase public awareness about the importance of including women at all levels of decision-making.

We can achieve all these if we aim at equipping future women leaders with skills, knowledge and confidence and to empower those women who want to come forward and take active roles in politics and public life. There are quite a good number of women in Cameroon that have the charisma to get Cameroon out of the quagmire. Mrs. Kah Walla, for example, needs to overcome some technical impediments so that she could work in challenging the public’s preconceptions of women in politics.

If she could become her party’s candidate during the 2011 presidential election, we are of the opinion that the said party could wake up from slumber and widen its chances of winning the said elections and subsequent elections in Cameroon. She is therefore urged to challenge the accepted orthodoxies with in her party.  Let us give women a chance and let them fight for what they erroneously believe that men are responsible for their backwardness.

Women of Cameroon’s main opposition political party, the Social Democratic Front, SDF, in Wouri Division, Littoral Region were on Sunday 6 June 2010 in Douala told to challenge men in all structures of the party in upcoming elections.

The statement was made by Mrs. Chantal Kambiwa, SDF Shadow Cabinet Minister of Gender and Vice President of the World Socialist Women movement at a ceremony to officially install coordinators of SDF Socialist Women in the Wouri division.

Increasingly, “the face of HIV/AIDS is a woman’s face”. Women have greater susceptibility than men to infection due to social, cultural and physiological reasons, and are now being infected at a higher rate than men.

Though the epidemic initially affected mostly men, today approximately half of the 40 million people living with HIV are women.

Going by the title, and at first reading, one turns to expect Dora to be dictating what she considers the steps to a successful life.

This is, however, not the case as she painstakingly moves the reading in to her life experience as a role model to other people of her age and cuts across all other segments of the age ladder.

Etiquette and manners are seeds which must be planted and nurtured from home and home is where children learn not only good manners but also core values and ethics. It is from home that children learn to be considerate, tolerant and respectful. It starts from where a child learns to share and respect all other family members. It is also the place where children put into practice the foundation of all social etiquettes they need to carry them through life.

It is true that there are several different styles of parenting but none is perfect because there is no such thing as a perfect parent. What is important is that parents should have a style or method of parenting. As parents, we should, therefore, try to teach our children different life improving etiquettes that will carry them through in life. Such etiquettes include telephone manners, table manners, greeting manner, talking manner and sitting manner.

A one-day workshop on women and land rights, organised by some researchers of the University of Buea in collaboration with the International Development Research Centre in Canada, was held at the conference hall of Divisional Office Wum on 25 March 2010.

Among some recommendations made by the representatives of women’s groups in Menchum Division, was that traditional laws restricting the women from inheriting land, be abolished. The women also asked to be included in decision-making in traditional councils and also to be made part of the land consultative board.

Orphans are amongst the most underprivileged children in Cameroon given the fact that financial constraints facing guidance is the order of the day.

With these difficulties, it is hard for them to have basic education, food and above all shelter which are amongst the fundamental human rights of the children as stipulated in the United Nations Convention of the rights of the child.

South Africa's President Jacob Zuma has defended polygamy during a question and answer session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Zuma, who married his third wife earlier this month, said it was part of his Zulu culture and did not detract from his belief in women's equality.

The World Vegetable Centre in collaboration with the Food and Agricultural Organisation, FAO, last week in Yaounde organised a two-day training workshop to train trainers on the Hortivar crop system cultivation.

The two-day seminar brought together experts from the various ministries, international institutions and the agricultural sector as a whole.

Organisers of the Africa Rally, have revealed that the car auction sales that was carried out in Limbe was successful, as their target income was realised with a surplus.

Duncan Milligan, the event manager of The Africa Rally and member of the League of Adventurists International Ltd, Bristol, UK, was speaking in Limbe at the trade fair ground after the complete sale by public auction of all the cars which the adventurists used in racing from London to Limbe.