THE national power utility company, TANESCO Managing Director, Maharage Chande has underscored the need for enhanced efforts to accelerate women’s empowerment and gender equality in the workplaces, social and economic spheres.
Mr Chande made the statement over the weekend, during a workshop that also witnessed the launching of a four year (2023-2026) Gender Work Programme (GWP) through the World Bank funded programme Tanzania-Zambia Interconnector project that is aimed at addressing gender gaps.
He said the company remains committed to the full realisation of the gender priorities noting the programme launch is indeed a demonstration of commitment that gender equality and women’s empowerment matters remain at the centre of the national development agenda.
“This workshop will serve as a platform for sharing best practices, new ideas and innovative strategies from practitioners on mainstreaming gender in promoting our common goal of achieving gender equality and women empowerment,” said the Taneco boss.
GWP is part of the World Bank funded Tanzania-Zambia Transmission Interconnector project, which intends to construct 400KV power transmission line from Iringa to Sumbawanga through Mbeya and Tunduma with the objective of interconnecting with Zambia.
The programme is a component of the TAZA project to be implemented by TANESCO and is developed in-line with the findings of the Gender Gap Assessment (GGA) report of TANESCO (2020), which was conducted through the support of the World Bank.
He said the programme is not a stand-alone intervention limited to TAZA Project but an institutional gender mainstreaming strategy in TANESCO.
“This programme is significant to the achievement of company’s core values and business performance as it contributes to increased work efficiency and effectiveness by addressing the challenges of women in the workplace, fosters innovation and builds team dynamics which is crucial for increased productivity” he insisted.
He said the four year programme among others will complement TANESCO’s interim corporate strategic plan (2021/22-2023/24) which among other things it has the objective of improving staff diversity at middle and top management level to attracting competent women leaders and increase the current status from 12 to 15 per cent.
Also, the company has established a graduate trainee programme which is planned to begin on the financial year 2023/24 to provide opportunities for Internship, which will lead to successful candidates to be hired at TANESCO.
Speaking during the launching, Tanesco Board of Director Vice-Chairperson, Ambassador Mwanaidi Maajar said the GWP aims at contributing in narrowing the gender gaps in TANESCO, by increasing the number of women recruits particularly across the technical cadre, while also addressing the challenges that hinder women advancement in STEM professions.
She said the implementation of GWP is also relevant in complementing national efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 5 and in particular target 5.5, which aims to ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making.
Earlier, officiating at the launching, Deputy Minister for Energy, Mr Stephen Byabato commended Tanesco for coming up with the programme with the purpose of developing and implementing it to address the challenges facing women employees in the workplace career growth and increase the number of women across recruits’ efforts.
He named some of the strategic intervention areas as strengthening institutional structure and capacity to mainstream gender in Tanesco operations, strengthening availability and reporting with gender disaggregated data and develops and implements women graduates’ internship programmes.
Other areas are career growth capacity development programme for in service women employees and update the institutional policy and procedure to become more gender supportive.
