Norway yearns for more women participation in economic activities

Dar es Salaam. Outgoing Norwegian ambassador to Tanzania Hanne-Marie Kaarstad has challenged the government and other stakeholders to increase the efforts to empower women saying it’s significant to have them included in the economic activities if the country is to develop.

In a farewell party organized by the Engineers Registration Board (ERB) on Friday, July 6,MsKaarstad gave an example of her country’s successes and how they’re intrinsically linked to women empowerment.

“In Norway, we have a clear and scientific proof that the greater involvement of more women in economic activities of the country has been a major drive for the growth of the Norwegian society,” she said.

Norwegian embassy has a wide range of activities in the country and the Scandinavian country has long and historical ties with Tanzania going back since the times of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, the first President of independent Tanganyika later Tanzania.

MsKaarstad said that since Tanzania was currently in the transformation period from more of an agriculture-based to an industrialized economy, the importance engineers cannot exaggerate.

She pointed out that a country without engineering capacity will not manage sustainable industrial transformation.

“And we must make women a part of this process so that they can be able to contribute to that transformation,” she observed.

Mr Patrick Barozi, who is the ERB acting Registrar and the host of the farewell party said that the support by the Norwegian government for female engineers in the country has been “very significant and remarkable.”

This is not only to the Board but also to the government of Tanzania especially in this phase where the country has embarked on industrialisation.

The support his argument, Mr Barozi pointed out, has increased the number of female professional engineers in the country from 96 to 463 to date, which is almost 382 per cent increase.

“This has in turn improved the ratio of female to male professional engineers in the country where before, the ratio was 1 to 27 and now it stands at 1 to eleven.”

The complement was supported by Prof NinatubuLema, the ERB’s Board Chairman, who singled out guiding young graduates from graduate engineers immediately after completing their studies into professional engineers as a key activity of the ERB.

He said that ERB works towards building engineering capacity in the country and the support by the Norwegian people has been able to change the landscape of engineering for women in Tanzania.

“The statistics in my own class at the university show that out of 132 students there are about 27 female students,” said Prof Lema.

“This is very different with the way how things were ten years ago.”