Partner News

Quotas are critical in ensuring greater representation of women, according to the latest IPU Women in Parliament report.

The numbers are clear. In 2021, countries with some form of gender quotas elected 31.9 per cent women on average to their lower/single house, while those without quotas elected 19.5 per cent women cumulatively.

On International Women’s Day, UNDP and UN Women launched the Gender Justice Platform to leverage their partnership on gender justice. Since 2020, UN Women and UNDP have joined together to enable access to justice for 42,000 individuals. In 14 conflict-affected contexts across Africa and the Middle East, UNDP and UN Women facilitated access to justice services and led advocacy initiatives to support women’s leadership.

The launch of the Gender Justice Platform marks the extension of the scope of the partnership.

International IDEA has made women's participation one of its main axes in improving the inclusiveness of electoral processes in the Arab region.

International IDEA works to reduce the gap between women's rights as affirmed in the legal texts in the different Arab countries and the low rates of women in decision-making positions.

The 22 years old Saraswati Nepali is the mom of two kids and lives approximately five hours' drive (and five hours walk) away from the headquarter of Karnali Province, Surkhet—a place that paid the heaviest of prices in the 10 year-long armed conflict from 1996-2006. Her first son is eight years old, and her second son is four and half years old, almost as old as her term of office as a ward member in Shiwalaya Rural Municipality (RM) of Karnali Province.

Advancing gender equality in the context of the climate crisis and disaster risk reduction is one of the greatest global challenges of the 21st century.

The global proportion of women parliamentarians has increased by 0.6 percentage points to reach 26.1 per cent according to the IPU’s latest Women in Parliament in 2021 report. This is in line with progress seen in the past two years. The increase can be largely attributed to the critical role played by well-designed quotas.

By Ashim Steiner

In a region that has seen the greatest progress in political gender equality in the last two decades, Paraguay stands out, but for the wrong reasons: it has the third-lowest percentage of women in parliament in the Americas, with 17.5%, roughly half the regional average of 33.9%. When considering other elective positions, the divide widens.