Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has allowed the Vietnam Lawyers’ Association to receive a project to promote women’s political participation in Vietnam. The one-year project, funded by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Asia and Pacific Affairs (EAP) Women’s Issues Fund, will be carried out in 10 northern and central provinces.

The President of Women in Broadcasting (WIB), Sarah Akrofi-Quarcoo has underscored the need for training for women editors and writers. This will help them to contribute in decision making and policy formulation in political circles.

From the party platform ratified by delegates between speeches Monday, to primetime, headlining speeches by two heavy hitters in the election -- Sen. Hillary Clinton and first-lady hopeful Michelle Obama -- the initial two days of the Democratic National Convention were dominated by women.

In the 2007-2010 interim plan the government incorporated gender empowerment targets. To mainstream gender in national development policies, the Nepali government introduced a gender responsive budgeting (GRB) system in the fiscal year 2007-08.

Women are playing a more prominent role in Cambodian politics, according to women's rights activists and female politicians, even though the new fourth mandate of the National Assembly will again be a largely male affair.

A survey released Monday said most U.S. residents believe women can be political leaders, although most consider them to be no better than men. The poll from the Pew Research Center said only 6 percent of the adults surveyed considered women to have better skills and attributes than men when it comes to political leadership abilities.

Women Leaders in the Greater Accra Region are the latest to join the campaign train for a peaceful election in the country. The urgent call for peace by the women leaders was made last Thursday, at a forum organised for them by the Greater Accra Regional Office of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) in Accra.

The challenge for the Mauritian general elections, which will take place in 2010, will be to ensure that the representation of women in politics triples. Currently, women comprise only 17% of the Parliament, 11.2% in municipalities and 5.2% in district councils. This project dovetails with the SADC Protocol on gender and development.

EMILY's List released a national study Wednesday that examines how "women of different generations view the presidential candidates, politics and life in general." The study, entitled "From 18 to 80: Women on Politics and Society" focused on the views of four generational groups of women.

Women Members of Parliament will present the Domestic Violence Bill (DRB) as a Private Members Bill if government fails to move it before the House by the end of this year.

There cannot be sustainable women empowerment in development and politics if women lobby groups leave out culture in their campaigns, Chikwawa District Commissioner Lawford Palani has said. He said most organisations lobbying for greater women representation were forgetting culture as a crucial component in the quest to achieve the SADC 30 percent women participation goal, set in Blantyre in 1997.

Gender activists breathed a sigh of relief when a long-delayed gender protocol was signed at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit this weekend. The protocol calls for 50 percent representation by women at all levels of government by 2015 and further calls for member states to put in place legislative measures which guarantee that political and policy structures are gender sensitive.

Nearly a third of candidates in Angola's upcoming parliamentary elections are female, thanks to a new quota imposed by the government. The 30 percent rule was designed to bring more women into the country's parliament, but as campaigning gets under way, women continue to stay in Angola's political shadows, barely visible at rallies and with few holding senior party positions.

The third Gender and Media (GEM) summit ended in Johannesburg yesterday, Tuesday, 12 August 2008, with a call for the adoption of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development that includes strong provisions for achieving gender balance and sensitivity in the media. The summit took place on the eve of the annual meeting of leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), 16 - 17 August, where the protocol that has been in the making for several years is expected to be adopted. Among the targets in the protocol are the achievement of 50% women in all areas of decision-making; reduction of gender violence by half of the current levels; ensuring that all constitutions in the region have a provision for gender equality that is not contradicted by any law or custom; and a range of targets for the economic empowerment of women by 2015.

The Philippines House of Representatives and Senate are nearing passage of a 'Magna Carta for Women' - a Bill that will codify the UN Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). According to the Bill's sponsor, this legislation will "reaffirm the state’s commitment to the participation and empowerment of women in all aspects of the family, society and government.”