A day before the document containing these gains was adopted, President Kibaki had set the tone at meeting he delivered a key note speech on women and work, by declaring that he subscribed to the affirmative action and empowerment of women.

President Mwai Kibaki committed himself to affirmative action when assured Kenyan and other African women delegates that women’s issues and the affirmative action as prescribed in the Beijing Platform for Action and also in the Kenyan’s draft constitution will be given priorities.

Delivering a key note speech during the launched of a book, the Progress of the World’s Women 2005, in New York, the President said that women are the majority voters, and “should be given a role in society in line with their numbers.”

The book, published by United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM), argues that ensuring the rights of women and generating increased quality employment opportunities for them is one of the sure ways of getting women out of poverty.

The book makes the case for increasing the opportunity and rights of women in a working economy.

Kibaki urged men who constitute the largest number in decision-making organs of the government to come up with policies that encourage women to be elected in parliament in large numbers.

“I urge my fellow men to be committed to this problem, and also convince those who do not believe in women’s empowerment that unless they ensure the rights of a section of our society who make up half of the population, then we will not achieve the kind of development we want.”

Speaking to galaxy of women attending the on-going UN Summit on MDGs, he committed his government to working with the United Nations Women’s Fund (UNIFEM) to make poverty among women history.

The President said since NARC came to power, there have been positive steps towards women’s empowerment in the areas of education and HIV/AIDS.

Increased access to ARVs has been implemented to lessen the burden of women who are the majority care givers, he added.

According to the President trade liberalisation and economic growth has impacted on the informal sector where women are the majority and earn wages lower than their men counterparts.

He emphasised that the UNIFEM report, “will serve as an important reference and recommendation which will help us address gender equality and empowerment and pay more attention to employment of women.”

Responding rounds of applause as he spoke, he explained that Kenya has already put in place mechanisms such as the Economic Recovery and Wealth Creation Strategy and national policy on gender to help gender empowerment.

Speaking during the function, UNIFEM’s Executive Director, Noeleen Heyzer lauded Kenyan’s policies that have a bias toward uplifting the welfare of women. “Kenya has put a national strategy of creating wealth through poverty eradication, and which focuses on sectors where women are largely represented,” She said.

Heyzer further challenged the word leaders that allocation of resources and accountability to women’s issues is not clear and because of that, “the very increase of the Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) will make a difference to women.”

But Aniker Soder, State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sweden, challenged the world leaders that when they talk about the MDGs, they seem to forget about Goal 8 which can allow people to get out of poverty. “Promotion of gender equality is a tool to overcome poverty.” She said.

She informed the delegates that Sweden is the only country that has committed its 0.7% of the GNP to ODA funding to make MDG a reality to many poor countries.

However a report by the women lobby groups indicates that they were dismayed by lack of political will on the part of government to tackle poverty, foster peace and ensure human rights.

According to the report no progress also was made on the key demands of developing countries where wealthy nations refused to commit themselves to deadline for giving 0.7 per cent of the GNP for official development assistance.