Empowerment Of Women In Leadership In Civil Service Organizations Of Tigrai Regional State-Ethiopia

Ethiopia is found in Eastern Africa which is one of the world's great cross roads, where the people's and cultures of Africa, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean have been interacting for thousands of Years. The resulting ethnic and cultural diversity has given rise to many unique and dynamic visual traditions. Truly a land of discovery Ethiopia is brilliant and beautiful, secretive mysterious and extraordinary. Above all, it is a country of great antiquities, cultures and traditions stretching back to 3000 years. The country has thus been called a cultural mosaic, due to its 80 different languages and dialects and as many if not more, cultural varieties.In Ethiopia women constitute about half of the population. Women play an active role in the social and economic life of society. However, their decisive role in constructing the values and carrying the overall burden of household life are dominated by male superiority.This Dissertation addresses the research topic on Empowerment of Women in Various Levels of Leadership in Civil Service Organizations of (Tigrai Regional State) Ethiopia:Tigrai is taken as an area of concentration from which a conclusion can be made on the issues of women at all levels of leadership in civil service. The research investigation focused on five Bureaus selected based on the purposive sampling techniques. This is because: The size of employees of these bureaus is the biggest in the region .So that the researcher realizes these can be the sample of the other bureaus and offices in the regional state. The study on these bureaus can help others to adopt the experiences. These bureaus comparatively have many managers of different level both males and females.The objective of the study is empowerment of Women in Leadership in Civil Service Organizations of (Tigrai Regional State) Ethiopia:200 questionnaire papers were prepared and sent to Tigrai Regional State - Ethiopia to be answered by the heads and decision making bodies and their workers of the selected offices. The response rate is 175 (87.5%). Among the respondents 67(38.3%) are females and108 (61.7%) are males. They suggested the main factors for the under representation of women managers thus women are less educated, impacts of religious and harmful traditions and the less commitment of the government influence them. They also suggested their expected solutions that government should declare an affirmative action to encourage women to education, to minimize harmful traditional practices and all the society should be aware the gender sensitive and gender mainstreaming and strive for its application.The result of the discussion indicates from the total number of 2017 employees at different managerial levels from 2001 up to 2005, 1621(80.4%) were men and 396(19.6%) were women. Out of this 303(15%) were higher level managers out of this only 8.9% were women; 609(30.2%) of them were middle level mangers out this 14.1% were women and 1105(54.8%) were lower level managers out of this 25.6% were women. When the posts become higher the women representation is lower increase and vise-versa.The total number of the civil servants in the regional state of Tigrai from 2001 up to 2005 was 123658 working force out of this men were 71,720 (57.99%) and 51938(42.01%) were women. This is of course appearing pretty good. Nevertheless as the level of education becomes higher and higher the difference becomes wider and wider. For example if we see the workers who have Master's and PhD degrees the ratio men to women was 20:1 and bachelor degrees 14:1. The number and percentage of women employment gets lower as the level of education increases beyond the BA/BSc level.In fact in recent years there are very few females who play vital role in political arena in parliament and ministerial level as appointee. However, comparing the number of women with men they are still insignificant. So that for better development women should participate in decision-making policies. The main criterion to become a manager is educational qualification. However, women are less educated to become incompetent. So the government should design strategy that can upgrade women's skills and knowledge by opening technical and vocational training centers on different fields that can help the women to be competent.Low government intervention to address the problem of gender and leadership is also one cited problem which was stated by my respondents. Accordingly efforts should be made to promote understanding of the fact that the whole system of gender sensitive issue should be exercised, new ideas and values should be brought by the participation of people of diverse backgrounds in the policy decision-making process to narrow the unbalanced situation between men and women.The awareness of the importance of women in all aspects of leadership such as social, political and economic leadership as an issue is marginalized. At present women are discriminated on the basis of the society in general and male in particular in perception and attitude. As a result women are made to see themselves as less deserving of rewards for the challenges that would equip them for leadership. Some leaders felt that women leaders are honest, less corrupt, good communicators, hard working and loyal. They are also strong on what they believe and committed to make differences.The top officials can play a vital role by designing and monitoring gender sensitive policies; to address and mitigate these problems of equal representation in management leadership relentless effort and commitment is required mainly from the top executives by making themselves as models for the fully implementations of the governmental constitution and the Women's Policy issues of the country and of the region.Responsible authorities should take positive measures aimed at achieving real equality of opportunity by providing special attentions within a certain scope to women who are currently at a disadvantage as a result of past social/structural discriminationWomen should be encouraged to bring their vision and leadership, knowledge and skills, views and aspirations into the development agenda from the grassroots to international levels. To make the women contribute their skills Medias can play a vital role by creating awareness of the society. On the other hand, mass Medias can also teach the society to accept women's roles, skills knowledge and potentials women have as women, and overcome some of the constraints such as lack of self-confidence and assertiveness– could make a major contribution in this respect.