Advocacy & Lobbying
This webinar focused on barriers, challenges and strategies pertaining to the issue of gender parity for women in politics. Our guest speaker for the discussion was Dr. Mona Lena Krook.
Applying an intersectional lens the webinar discussion drew on research from Dr. Mona Lena Krook’s book, Elect Women for a Change: The Path to Gender Parity in Politics, Dr. Krook presented a core thesis: the global political community must move beyond aspirational "critical mass" targets (typically 30%) toward a non-negotiable 50/50 parity framework. This shift represents a transition from viewing women’s participation as an elective "add-on" to recognizing it as a fundamental requirement for democratic legitimacy.
Women in Montenegro are no less interested and competent in politics, but they are limited by deep-rooted gender norms, stereotypes about social roles, unequal distribution of power within political structures, as well as a hostile environment that includes discrediting, hate speech, and gender-based attacks in public spaces.
This was announced at the roundtable "Empowering Women for the Political Future of Montenegro", organized by the Center for Monitoring and Research (CeMI).
CeMI Program Director Teodora Gilić She said that an improved legal framework, including a 40 percent quota for the less represented gender, does not automatically mean substantial equality for women in politics, reports PR Center.
"Numbers are important, but they do not in themselves guarantee real influence, equal participation in decision-making, or a change in political culture," said Gilić.
She pointed out that women in Montenegro are not less interested in politics or less competent, but that they are limited by deep-rooted gender norms, stereotypes about social roles, unequal distribution of power within political structures, as well as a hostile environment that includes discrediting, hate speech and gender-based attacks in public space.
As Ghana prepares for local elections in 2027, new research presented in Accra today warns that violence against women in politics remains a significant barrier to democratic participation at the local level.
At a joint roundtable hosted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Ghana and the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI), researchers, policymakers, development partners and members of the diplomatic community convened to examine structural barriers to women’s political participation and identify strategies for safer, more inclusive local governance.
Presenting on NAI’s research, Senior Researcher Diana Højlund Madsen shared findings from the newly published book Making Politics Safer – Mitigating violence against women in politics in Africa: insights from Ghana, Kenya and Zimbabwe, released in NAI’s Current African Issues series The book draws on 134 interviews with politically active women and highlights how women in local politics face systematic forms of physical, sexual, psychological, economic and semiotic violence designed to deter their participation and preserve male-dominated political systems.
“In Ghana, only 4.1 per cent of district assembly members are women. If we want inclusive local governance, we must look not only at how to bring women into politics, but at the conditions under which they participate,” said Diana Højlund Madsen. “Violence and intimidation are not isolated incidents. They are structured obstacles that shape who is able to stand for office and remain in politics.”
Gender equality and women empowerment remain a globally important priority policy issues. “Women in Politics” is an indispensable part of progress towards nurturing greater gender equality. In this seminar, we focus on key success factors underlying Nordic model of higher female representation in politics and how could this potentially be achieved in Japan. European and Japanese stakeholders will discuss common challenges, share experiences and best practices, and identify potential avenues of cooperation.
Please join us for the online viewing of this seminar.[Deadline - Tuesday, 3 March 2026]:
On a visit to the DRC, the UNFPA Regional Director for East and Southern Africa (ESARO), Ms. Lydia ZIGOMO, and the Humanitarian Director, Shoko ARAKAKI, met with women's organizations and Women Leaders (WLOs) in Kinshasa and Goma.
This high-level exchange aimed to reaffirm the United Nations' support for the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Agenda in the Democratic Republic of Congo, focusing on the challenges and priorities of women on the ground.
The two Directors hailed the frontline leadership and agility of women operating in high-risk areas, emphasizing their indispensable role in protection against Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and advocating for women's participation in peace processes in the DRC.
As a wave of protests stemming from the death of a 22-year-old Iranian woman enters its second month, demonstrations have spread worldwide.
Claudia Yaghoobi, an Iranian Armenian American and the director of the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies, answered questions from The Well about what led to the historic protests, how the fallout compares to previous conflicts and more. Yaghoobi is also the Roshan Institute Associate Professor in Persian Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences’ department of Asian and Middle Eastern studies.
What sparked the protests and who is protesting?
In September 2022, protests broke out spontaneously across the country after images appeared on social media of 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini, an Iranian Kurdish woman, unconscious on a hospital bed. She was declared dead on Sept. 16, three days after being arrested on a Tehran street by the morality police.
The Kurdish phrase “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” (“Woman, Life, Freedom”), derived from years of Kurdish resistance and activism, became the slogan of this moment. Amini’s parents made a conscious decision to hold her funeral publicly even though they had been told not to. This incited protests in Saghez during the funeral when women began taking off their veils and cutting their hair. Thereafter, in almost all cities of Iran protests arose and women began cutting their hair and burning their hijabs in solidarity. The protests, or what’s been called feminist social revolution, continue to this day, as we are in the sixth week.
The protests are different in a few aspects from other protests or revolutions. For instance, they are leaderless, and people from various socio-economic gender, sexual, ethno-religious backgrounds are united. This is no longer the revolution of the educated urban middle class or upper middle class. This is a movement where all sectors of the society — Kurdish and Baluch people, men and women, the trans and queer communities, urban and rural — have come together. Mahsa Jina Amini was an ordinary woman from Saghez visiting Tehran with her family. She was not a dissident or anti-veiling activist. So, this could be anyone. And that’s why she’s united everyone.
UN Women launched www.cidade5050.org.br where candidates will be able to make public commitments to gender equality. The project was developed in a partnership between UN Women Brazil, the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE), the Patrícia Galvão Institute and the Research Group on Democracy and Inequality at the University of Brasilia (Demodê/UNB). It has institutional support of Congress in Focus, and #MeRepresenta and In Press Group.
The digital platform "City 50-50: All for Equality", available at www.cidade5050.org.br aims to encourage debate on equal rights between women and men in local elections this year. The platform is a place where candidates can make commitments to gender equality and voters can get information to help them define their vote. It arises from the understanding that a society can only be called democratic when there is equal participation between women and men.
Candidates of the 5,568 Brazilian municipalities, which already have registered their candidatures with the TSE can register and make public commitments to promote women's rights during the election campaign. Voters, in turn, will be able to identify their candidates’ proposals for this topic, and afterwards make the elected accountable.
The Minister of the Superior Electoral Court, Luciana Lossio, highlighted some measures already taken to ensure women's political empowerment: "We had a major trial at the Superior Electoral Court that buoyed the condemnation to all political parties that do not comply with the 10 per cent allocation of radio and TV space to encourage women´s participation. Now we are joining in a partnership with UN Women, to seek a solution to this problem of the Brazilian Electoral Politics."
Among the more than 144 million Brazilian voters who will vote in October, 52% are women. However, only 31% of the candidates running for office (Mayors, Vice Mayor and City Council) are women - the percentage is within the law, which requires a minimum of 30% women candidates.
For this elections, 52 municipalities have only women as candidates for city council, according to a survey conducted in mid-August this year by the TSE. Only men compete for Mayor in 3,815 of the 5,568 municipalities, equivalent to 68% of the total. Currently, women occupy 10% of the municipalities and represent 12% of councilors in municipalities.
To read the full story, visit the UN Women regional website for Latin America and the Caribbean.
The report’s chapters were built in response to the Concluding Observation No. 60 by the CEDAW Committee, where the Committee request from the Iraqi government’s side to submit, within two years, a written report on steps and measures taken to respond to the recommendations included in the Concluding Observations (12 and 18). The Concluding Observations, of the CEDAW Committee, were issued after its 57th session on February 2014, in which the last government’s report, submitted to the Committee at the end of 2013, was discussed, concerning Iraq's obligations to implement the CEDAW Convention, also in that session Iraqi CSOs presented the first CEDAW shadow report for Iraq since signing the convention back in 1986.
This report includes a review of the situation of Iraqi women after an increase in the phenomenon of migration and displacement, in addition to the procedures and measures and legislation adopted to implement recommendations 12 and 18, and the civil society’s observations on the government’s report plus a number of activities run by the Iraqi Women Network and some of its members during this period of time.
Click here to read the Summary of the humanitarian situation and the situation of women in Iraq and the role of CSOs.
In this report, the Working Group examines discrimination against women and girls in cultural and family life. The cultural construction of gender determines the role of women and girls within the family, including in marriage. After analysing the impact of culture and religion on the enjoyment of equal rights by women and girls in society and the family, the Working Group redefines family by incorporating a gender perspective. In reaffirming equality between the sexes and family diversity, it is necessary to apply the principle of women’s right to equality in all forms of family law, in secular family law systems, State-enforced religious family law systems and plural systems. After recalling the obligation of States to combat discrimination against women in cultural and family life, the Working Group makes several recommendations, drawing on good practices, for the establishment of true equality between the sexes in cultural and family life.
This year, for the first time ever, two of the largest neuroscience societies are led by a female scientist: the Society for Neuroscience (SfN), with nearly 42,000 members, and the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS), which represents more than 22,000 neuroscientists in 42 member societies across Europe. While the SfN has a history of female presidents, 9 out of 45, FENS welcomed its first female president only recently. Why do women move so slowly through the ranks of the system and why is it important that they do so? More urgently, what can be done to change this and by whom? Here we address current challenges and recommend concrete actions.
· Young people are not at the center of political decision making even though almost half the world’s population is under 30 years old. [UNDP, 2013, http://bit.ly/1dd2a2L]
· Globally, less than 6% of the parliamentarians are under 35 years old [UNDP, Fast Facts: Civic Engagement and Participation of Youth in Politics and Public Institutions, 2014, p.1, http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/results/fast_facts/Fast-Facts-youth-civic-engagement-and-participation/]
· Globally, less than 2 per cent of parliamentarians are under 30 years old. [SDG indicator 16.7.1; Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2016: Youth participation in national parliaments, 2016, http://goo.gl/A83XGf]
· The average age in parliament in 53 years old. [UNDP, 2013, http://bit.ly/1dd2a2L]
· Only 1.65% of parliamentarians around the world are in their 20’s and for a third of countries, eligibility for national parliament starts at 25 years old. [UNDP, 2013, http://bit.ly/1dd2a2L]
· Voter turnout among 18-25 year olds continues to be lower than other age groups [UNDP, Fast Facts: Civic Engagement and Participation of Youth in Politics and Public Institutions, 2014, p.1, http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/results/fast_facts/Fast-Facts-youth-civic-engagement-and-participation/]
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· 2 out of 3 countries DO NOT consult young people as a part of the process of preparing poverty reduction strategies or national development plans. [The Global Youth Call “Prioritizing Youth in the Post-2015 Development Agenda,” http://www.un.org/youthenvoy/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/The_Global_Youth_Call.pdf]
Source:
http://www.un.org/youthenvoy/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/YouthStatsPublicandCivicParticipation1.pdf
The Compendium of Good Practices on Advancing Women’s Political Participation in the OSCE Region, compiled on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, presents good practices for enhancing women’s participation in parliaments, political parties, elections and local politics in the OSCE region.
Learn more about the challenges facing women in politics in our infographic, which is based on statistical data in the compendium. Click here to access the high resolution version of the visual.
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