About Female Future Tanzania
The Female Future Programme in Tanzania was introduced in 2015 with the aim of strengthening gender equality in the workplace, improving women’s representation in management decision-making processes as well as drawing women to the top positions of the private and public sectors as part of the efforts to ensure sufficient qualified women in all organisations and leadership positions.
The programme started in Norway about 15 years ago by ATE’s sister organisation in Norway known as Confederation of the Norwegian Enterprise (NHO). The programme is delivered in three modules: Leadership, Rhetoric and Board Competence for 14 days spread over 9 months. Through these modules, the ladies benefit and connect strategically to improve their performance, personal and organisational success and at the same time they have self-growth, self-awareness and skills development. For organisations that have participated in this programme, it has improved productivity at the workplaces and groomed talents they have wished to motivate.
Launch of Female Future Tanzania
The Female Future Programme was launched in 2016 by the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, by then the Vice President of Tanzania, H.E. Samia Suluhu Hassan whereby she commended the establishment of the programme in Tanzania which helps to promote business competitiveness for equal distribution of resources in the country. She also said that her government emphasizes that women have the same representation in the government and the community as well as in business. This was initiated by the government in the National Strategy for Gender Development that
builds on Tanzania Development Vision 2025.
The launch was also graced by the Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office responsible for Policy, Parliamentary Affairs, Labour, Youth, Employment and PWDs, Hon. Jenista Mhagama (MP) together with various CEOs from different organisations who had a chance to share their insights regarding the value of the programme and also officials from Eastern & Southern Management Institute (ESAMI) who are collaborating with ATE to deliver this programme.
Annual Leadership Conference
The Association of Tanzania Employers through the Female Future Programme has been able to host 3 Annual Leadership Conferences (ALC) that have attracted leaders from various institutions at different levels including government officials, stakeholders and partners of ATE. The main objective of these conferences is to bring together the private sector, development partners, institutions of higher learning, the government and global leaders to develop new and innovative approaches for mainstreaming gender in the workplace.
The 1st and 2nd Annual Leadership Conferences were both graced by the Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office responsible for Policy, Parliamentary Affairs, Labour, Youth, Employment & PWDs, Hon. Jenista Mhagama held in 2018 and 2019 with the themes “Effective Leadership during Changing Environment” and “The Future of Work for Women: Are Workplace Policies Ready?’’ respectively. These two events were a success and attracted over 150 guests and support from several organisations and ATE stakeholders.
The 3rd Annual Leadership Conference took place in March 2021 themed “Women in Leadership: Harnessing Female Talent to Create Sustainable Organisations” The Guest of Honour for this conference was H.E. Samia Suluhu Hassan, the President of the United Republic of Tanzania. She commended ATE for being able to manage this programme with success and recommended that the same programme to be extended to female parliamentarians, female public officers and to elected female representatives. H.E. Samia Suluhu Hassan was accompanied by Hon. Jenista Mhagama and the previous Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner, Abubakar Kunenge.
Female Future Programme for Female Parliamentarians
When the President of the URT was officiating the 3rd Annual Leadership Conference, she recommended that the programme should be extended to female parliamentarians. ATE as an organisation that has been running this programme since 2016 and shown remarkable achievements from the participants and organisations, it was seen fit for the programme to be customised to meet the needs of the female parliamentarians in collaboration with ESAMI with 3 modules to be trained; that is Leadership, Rhetoric and Governance.
Through this initiative, ATE will increase visibility and become one of the organisations that are part of the solution in bridging the gender gap in top leadership positions. 150 female MPs have been trained both from Tanzania mainland and Zanzibar. FF Achievements: With a database of over 300 women who have participated in this programme, we managed to launch the Female Future Alumni Network in 2018 and so far, have had five alumni networking sessions of which one was held online and internationally attended by female future participants from Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Tunisia to launch the International Female Future Alumni Association.
The networking sessions aim at increasing cooperation, networking, opportunities and mentorship. The participants of the female future programme have shown quite a number of career growth and about 40% of the ladies have moved to higher leadership positions within and outside their organisations, more than 15 ladies have acquired board seats in different prestigious boards and among others who have recorded high level of growth in their lives, careers and improved their companies’ productivity.
