Are women under-represented in decision-making bodies in Cameroon? The answer, considering the report published by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) in April 2017, is invariably “yes”. Indeed, this report entitled “Women in the changing working world: 50-50 planet by 2030” reveals a low representation of women in the Senate.

Based on the results from the last senate election, there are 21 women senators out of 100 in total. Among the 70 elected senators, 25.7% are women, while out of the 30 appointed, 10% are women.

In the Parliament, even though the proportion of seats occupied by women has been gradually growing, it is nonetheless true that during the last four parliamentary sessions, out of 180 members of parliament, we went from 10 women members of parliament during the 1997-2002 to 56 only during the 2013-2018 session.

For town halls, between the 2007-2012 and 2013-2018 terms, the number of women mayors went from 22 to 29 out of 1,080 mayors in total.

In the government, between 2001 and 2015, the proportion of women only moved from 6.7% in 2001 to 16.4% in 2015/2016.

The percentage of women is virtually zero in prefect positions. Since Decree N°2013/292 dated 06 September 2013 on prefect appointments, the prefect corporation has only one woman out of 58 prefects, thus a representativeness of 1.7%. Same situation with regards to women deputy prefects. Since 22 April 2013, date on which deputy prefects were appointed by presidential decree, Cameroon has 7 women among the 360 deputy prefects who are operating in the Ngaoundéré III (Adamawa), de Gazawa (Far North), de Bikok (Central), de Nkolmetet (Central), de Somalomo (Eastern), Garoua III (Northern), Bafoussam III (Western) districts.

Sylvain Andzongo