WOMEN’S TIME — BUT NOT YET

NGOCC says women are still struggling to break through Zambia’s political barriers as party adoptions and lack of resources continue to hold them back

By Francis Maingaila ♥️

Lusaka, Zambia24 — September 15, 2026 — ZAMBIA’S women have the numbers, the qualifications and the ambition to lead, but the doors to political power are still not opening wide enough for them.

That is the message coming from the Non-Governmental Gender Organisations’ Coordinating Council (NGOCC), which says the 2026 General Elections have once again exposed how difficult it remains for women to secure political space despite years of campaigning for equal representation.

NGOCC Executive Director Anne Mbewe Anamela said the organisation’s preliminary assessment of the 2026 elections shows that women are still far from having a meaningful share of political power.

She said the results underline the need for deliberate and sustained efforts to give women a fair chance to compete, win and effectively participate in political decision-making.

Ms Anamela said this was why NGOCC launched the “Her Time Is Now” campaign following the 2021 General Elections, when the number of women in political leadership remained worryingly low.

The campaign was meant to do more than encourage women to stand for office. It was designed to help women prepare for political contests, mobilise support, deal with violence and navigate the difficult terrain of party politics.

But the numbers from the elections show just how steep the climb remains.

Women make up more than 51 percent of Zambia’s population, yet their presence in Parliament and local government has remained a fraction of that figure.

In 2016, women held 29 of the 164 parliamentary seats, representing 18 percent, while only 123 of the 1,624 councillors were women.

In 2021, the number of women MPs dropped to 25 out of 167, representing 15 percent. Women councillors stood at 141 out of 1,858, again around eight percent.

The preliminary 2026 figures show some movement, but NGOCC says the country is still nowhere near the 50 percent mark expected under the SADC Gender Protocol.

Of the 226 constituency-based parliamentary seats, women have taken 32, representing about 14 percent.

Under the Mixed Member Proportional Representation arrangement, women account for 20 of the 40 seats, or 50 percent.

Female youth occupy seven of the 15 youth seats, representing about 47 percent, while women with disabilities have taken two of the five seats allocated to persons with disabilities.

Overall, NGOCC estimates that women will make up about 22.4 percent of the 2026 Parliament, although local government figures were still being compiled.

For NGOCC, the improvement is welcome, but it is not enough.

The organisation notes that before the 2026 elections, the highest level of women’s representation ever reached in Zambia’s Parliament was 18 percent.

The “Her Time Is Now” campaign therefore sought to tackle the problem from several angles.

NGOCC worked with women in selected districts, providing a platform where aspiring candidates could share experiences, build confidence and strengthen their campaigns.

It also worked with stakeholders to build solidarity among women and to help candidates deal with one of the ugliest realities of election politics — violence against women.

The campaign supported the referral system for Violence Against Women in Elections, helping women who faced violence or intimidation to know where and how to seek help.

NGOCC also understood that women could not make much progress if political parties themselves were not prepared to give them space.

The organisation therefore engaged both ruling and opposition parties, pushing them to support women during the adoption process.

The campaign worked with first-time candidates as well as women who had contested elections before.

Before the adoption process, women received training on how to present themselves as credible candidates, develop campaign messages, build effective mobilisation teams, include gender issues in their manifestos and understand the responsibilities attached to the offices they wanted to occupy.

NGOCC also trained campaign foot soldiers and engaged the media on how women should be portrayed during elections.

Police officers and magistrates were trained on how to document and handle cases of Violence Against Women in Elections.

Political parties were also engaged around four major issues — adopting women identified and trained by NGOCC and its partners, putting gender equality into party constitutions, promoting peaceful elections and supporting the enactment of a Political Party Law dealing with inclusion and political party financing.

But when the adoption season arrived, reality proved much harder.

A total of 593 women filed their nominations through the Electoral Commission of Zambia process across the various levels of office.

Only 48 of the 439 mayoral candidates were women, representing 10.9 percent.

At ward level, women accounted for 433 of the 5,099 candidates, or 8.5 percent.

For the National Assembly, only 112 of the 973 candidates were women, representing 11.5 percent.

At presidential level, just one woman was among the 14 candidates.

Ms Anamela said the figures were a clear indication that many women who wanted to serve in public office never got past the party adoption stage.

NGOCC had to step in on several occasions when women faced conflicts or risked being pushed aside, engaging political parties and the Gender Division in an effort to resolve the disputes.

The organisation also spent time making sure women knew where to report violence, publicising the toll-free numbers 116, 933 and 944.

It worked with a coalition of civil society organisations to strengthen the fight against Violence Against Women in Elections and continued pushing the media to give women candidates fairer coverage.

But perhaps the biggest disappointment, according to NGOCC, was the failure of political parties to live up to their promise of giving women at least 30 percent of candidate positions.

The 30 percent pledge largely remained just that — a pledge.

Ms Anamela said most political parties did not honour the commitment, leaving many women who had prepared themselves for elections without a chance to contest.

She said the problem was rooted in longstanding cultural and traditional inequalities, as well as the dominance of men in political institutions.

For some women in opposition parties, internal fights and uncertainty over political alliances made matters even worse.

Money was another major problem.

NGOCC said it simply did not have enough resources to support all the women who needed help with campaign materials, mobilisation and other election expenses.

An attempt to raise additional money through the “Her Time Is Now” Donation Button did not yield the expected results.

Only a handful of cooperating partners were able to support NGOCC and the women involved in the campaign.

And for some women, the adoption process itself was a source of frustration.

NGOCC said women described some party adoption processes as corrupt and fiercely competitive.

There was also confusion surrounding Mixed Member Proportional Representation.

Some women who were not adopted were reportedly told they would find space through nominations under the new system, which had not yet been implemented.

For some of the women, those promises raised questions about whether they were genuinely being supported or simply being kept hopeful while space was made for male candidates.

NGOCC now wants the lessons from the 2026 elections to translate into action.

The organisation is calling for a coordinated approach to financing women’s political ambitions, with women in politics themselves playing a central role.

A dedicated fund for women candidates is one of the priorities, alongside renewed efforts to strengthen initiatives such as the Donation Button campaign.

NGOCC is also encouraging women to continue improving their qualifications.

Ms Anamela said qualifications were not as big an issue in 2026 as they had been in 2021, suggesting that the bigger problem now lies elsewhere — in the political structures and systems women must navigate.

She said political parties must also be held to account when they make commitments to women.

This includes pushing for stronger political party laws and finding practical ways of ensuring that promises made during engagements are actually honoured.

NGOCC is further calling on Government to fully implement laws and policies meant to advance gender equality.

Ms Anamela said having progressive policies on paper would not change women’s lives unless those policies were backed by action.

The organisation has also called for greater support for women who have won seats in the 2026 elections.

They need training, mentorship and continued engagement with their communities so that they can succeed and, in turn, become examples for other women who may want to enter politics.

For NGOCC, the struggle is therefore far from over.

Zambia cannot claim to have truly inclusive democracy when women — who make up more than half of the population — continue to occupy only a small share of political power.

The 2026 election has shown that women are willing to step forward. They are prepared to campaign, mobilise and compete.

What remains is for the political system to give them a genuinely fair shot.

And until that happens, women’s time may be now — but it is not yet.