WaterAid’s Bethlehem Mengistu wrote for Inter Press Service in April 2019 that record numbers of women in Ethiopia’s government after 2018 still left most women struggling to rise in other sectors.
Cabinet parity headlines were real and celebrated. Daily barriers in water access, unpaid care work, workplace harassment, and rural services did not vanish because a few ministries changed nameplates.
The Ethiopian government under Abiy liked the gender-parity brand. Mengistu’s point was that leadership optics without sector-wide power and resources is an incomplete story.
Kept as rights reference, the essay pushes readers past photo-ops. Women’s advancement is measured in clinics, schools, wages, and safety, not only in who sits at the cabinet table in Addis.
Sources: Inter Press Service
