One of the country's key international development partners -World Vision has stressed on the need for mindset change and serious engagements if the country is to achieve gender equality and social inclusion at all levels.
Country Director for World Vision Malawi Francis Duwe made the remarks on Wednesday during a press briefing with journalists in Blantyre ahead of the forum for gender and social inclusion which is expected to take place on 23 to 26 May in Lilongwe.
Duwe said the event, which is the first time to take place in Malawi, has been organized to take stock of the experiences, challenges, opportunities and knowledge gained in integrating gender equality and social inclusion in different sectors.
About 11 countries including Zimbabwe, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Kenya, Indonesia, and Bangladesh are expected to attend the forum.
"As part of coming together, this meeting is about sharing experiences, addressing issues of gender equality and social inclusion, enabling of networking, and knowledge exchange among practitioners, donors and policy makers.
"We are expecting to understand some of the gaps that have also led to marginalization of women and how best can we continue to work as society. To address those gaps we really want to move and get well developed societies we should ensure that we don't leave women behind but we walk with women," he said.
Legal and Governance Advisor for World Vision Malawi Tadala Chinkwezule called for serious implementation of legal instruments if the country is to win the drive of gender equality and social inclusion.
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"We have the gender equality Act, the disability Act and it supports the gender equality and also inclusion of people with disabilities, but l think the issue is the implementation , there is need for that eagerness from all concerned stakeholders to successfully implement these laws, "she said.
Director of People and Culture Debbie Phiri said: "Self empowerment is one of the major setbacks among women when it comes to gender equality for example when we have advertised the position, we found that as much as we have more women in Malawi most applications we receive are from men because female they think they can not do it.
"As World Vision we try as much as possible to have polices that also aligned to the national policies in regards to gender making sure that even those who are disadvantaged are also included," she said.
The forum is expected to bring together a diversity of participants from World Vision, multi-stakeholder development partners, government officials and policy makers.
