Vice President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah says Namibians should be guided by the principle of a balanced Parliament in terms of men and women, as well as young and old, in the general elections slated for November 2024.

 She said this on Monday in Windhoek while launching the third Nalafem Summit as its patron. 

The summit, a collective Pan-African platform for women politicians and activists, aims to foster, enable and mobilise towards transformative feminist leadership.

 Nandi-Ndaitwah, who is known as NNN in political circles, emphasised that the expectation is for Namibia to have a balanced Parliament in order to have a truly intergenerational National Assembly to ensure that developmental programmes are focused on addressing the real needs of the Namibian people.

 “You must enrich one another, the young and old generations. As an older one you have the experience, and the young ones are exploring. Therefore, if you put the two together, you will be able to get the product that can serve in situations in which you are at a particular point in time,” she said.

 Nandi-Ndaitwah emphasised that women’s participation in leadership has been developing. However, those taking up leadership positions received very limited support from society.

 She further noted that many countries are adopting gender-friendly laws in the contemporary global political setup, but not completely, as women still have to increase their efforts to be recognised beyond their sex or gender.

 “We still have a long way to go in the sense that when looking at a woman, they don’t look at an individual, they look at her as a whole family, unlike when they are looking at a man. For a woman, when you do something which maybe society feels could not be done, they will not put it on Netumbo, but they will rather say, you see now what women are doing,” she said.

 Nalafem was established on 1 July 2021, and its establishment is marked annually with a summit. This year’s summit is held under the theme ‘Women’s Right to Lead’. -Nampa