What Belgian Gender Parity Journey Teaches Africa, By Collins Nweke

I arrived in Belgium in the early 1990s, at a time when my home country, Nigeria, was under military rule. Democracy was suspended, political parties were constrained, and the very idea of representative politics was absent from public life. At the time, conversations about gender parity in political leadership was nonexistent. Against that backdrop, Belgium felt like another political universe altogether.

Barely a year after my migration, Belgium adopted the Smet–Tobback Act of 1994, a law designed to curb male dominance on electoral lists. For someone shaped by an authoritarian context where power was monopolised by uniformed men, this attempt to legislate fairness in democratic participation was at once exciting, confusing, and deeply instructive. I did not yet fully grasp its implications, but I had a high appetite to learn. Belgium, unknowingly, was becoming my first real classroom in democratic engineering.

That early contrast did more than sharpen my curiosity. This is the contrast between a militarised Nigeria where politics had been suspended and a Belgium experimenting with inclusion. It quietly recalibrated my understanding of what democracy could be when it is intentional. Belgian politics, which initially felt procedural and overly structured, began to reveal its deeper logic: democracy is not only about who votes, but also about who gets to stand, who gets to be visible, and who is structurally enabled to lead. Long before I entered party politics myself, I began to see gender parity not as a concession to women, but as an act of democratic design; one that sought to correct historical imbalance through law, not rhetoric.

Before joining active party politics in 2005, my grounding was in civil society organising, advocacy, and activism. From that vantage point, I watched Belgium cautiously but steadily recalibrate its democratic architecture. Gender parity did not arrive as a revolutionary rupture. It emerged through incremental reforms, social pressure, party experimentation, and legal correction. The Smet–Tobback Act was only a beginning. It did not impose full parity. It disrupted monopoly. That disruption mattered. It mattered because it forced parties to look beyond familiar faces and normalised the presence of women on electoral lists. More importantly, it shifted the political conversation from whether women were ready to whether parties were compliant.

When I eventually joined politics; first from the opposition benches and later, during the last six of my eighteen years in elective office, from the ruling coalition; gender parity was no longer an abstract principle. It became part of my governance portfolio, my committee work, and my coalition negotiations. From inside government, I saw clearly that progress did not depend on goodwill alone. It depended on rules, accountability, and persistence.

Belgium refined its approach over time. It tightened quota rules, introducing placement requirements, and embedding parity expectations into political norms. Resistance never disappeared, but it weakened as women repeatedly demonstrated that competence was never the issue. Access was. As parity took hold, it changed not just numbers, but behaviour. Political debates became less performative and more deliberative. Policy priorities widened to include care, inclusion, and social cohesion. Leadership styles diversified, without any loss of rigour. Parity, I learned, is not charity. It is democratic optimisation.

Yet admiration must be matched with candour. Belgium has come far. It came far enough for many developing democracies to study its pathway with respect. But  it has not yet reached uhuru. Gender parity here remains stronger in formal representation than in informal power. Women are present, but too often absent from the most influential executive portfolios, party steering rooms, and agenda-setting spaces where real political outcomes are shaped. Online harassment, political burnout, and the unequal care burden remain quiet but effective deterrents. These are not uniquely Belgian shortcomings. They are democratic stress points shared across continents.

From a Pan-African perspective, this unfinished business is precisely what makes Belgium’s experience instructive rather than intimidating. The lesson is not perfection, but process. Belgium did not achieve parity because its culture was ready. Its culture evolved because the law insisted. Africa’s task is not to replicate European models wholesale, but to adapt the principle that democracy can be engineered to be fairer. Incremental reform, periodically reviewed and politically defended, can over time do what good intentions alone never will.

This is where my thoughts turn deliberately to Nigeria. If Nigeria is serious about renewing its democracy, gender parity must move from conference resolutions to constitutional and political architecture. At the constitutional level, an explicit affirmative representation clause for elective and appointive offices should be considered. It must be grounded not in charity, but in democratic inclusion. At the electoral level, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should be empowered, through legislation, to require gender-balanced candidate thresholds as a condition for fielding candidates, backed by clear and enforceable sanctions. At the party level, reform must begin where power is most jealously guarded: candidate selection. Parties must institutionalise parity in their executive committees, primaries, and leadership pipelines, ensuring that women are influential long before ballots are printed.

Nigeria has reformed its democracy before. It did so often under more difficult circumstances. The question is no longer whether gender parity is compatible with Nigeria’s political culture, but whether Nigeria can afford to keep postponing a reform that strengthens legitimacy, broadens talent, and deepens trust.

As I reflect on this journey; from arriving in Belgium as a migrant from a Nigeria under military rule, through years of civil society activism, to nearly two decades in elected office, I am struck by how much of politics is learned by proximity. I did not inherit Belgium’s democratic instincts. I observed them, questioned them, and eventually participated in refining them. Belgium became my laboratory of learning. Africa, and Nigeria in particular, remains my moral compass.

In the end, gender parity in politics is neither a European export nor an African concession. It is a democratic necessity. I have witnessed its evolution; from migrant observer to civil society actor, and ultimately from within government; learning how deliberate rules can reshape political culture over time. Belgium’s experience shows that parity is built, defended, and renewed. Africa’s task, particularly Nigeria’s, is to act with similar intent, grounded in its own realities. Democracies mature not when they proclaim inclusion, but when they institutionalise it. If the next generation is to inherit a politics worthy of its talent and energy, gender parity must move from promise to power.

Author bio

Collins Nweke is a Nigeria-born retired Belgian politician, policy analyst, and consultant with nearly two decades of experience in local governance. A former Green councillor, he served both in opposition and in the ruling coalition, with responsibilities spanning social affairs and inclusion. A first-generation migrant who transitioned from civil society activism into elected office, he writes frequently on democracy, governance, and Africa–Europe relations. He is the author of the forthcoming book Economic Diplomacy of the Diaspora.