Advocacy & Lobbying
Concerned stakeholders across the globe have commenced advocacies for improved participation and involvement of women in politics in Nigeria.
The stakeholders including UN women, National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies and some female politicians in Ebonyi State argued that Nigeria tends to grow better when a sizeable number of females are included in governance.
As part of measures to achieving this aim, the organizations organised a one-day advocacy and sensitization workshop in Ebonyi North East State Constituency with the theme: “Advance Women’s Political Participation and Representation.”
At the event held in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State capital on Tuesday, the Coordinator of UN Women, Prof. Arthur Ikeme lamented that despite the gender equality campaigns, there are still low participation of women in politics and this motivated them to carry out sensitization visits to the South East geopolitical zone and Ebonyi State was chosen as the first point of call.
Ikeme commended the lawmaker, Chinyere Nwogbaga for her ingenuity and thanked the State Governor, Francis Nwifuru for putting women in positions of authority in his administration.
Nwogbaga who facilitated the programme recounted the hurdles she faced while seeking political position adding that women are being marginalised despite their efficiency and dedication to duties.
Read here the full article published by Investors King on 17 September 2024.
Image credits: Investors King
This publication is the latest edition in an annual series produced by UN Women and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Covering all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the report highlights new data and evidence on gender equality trends and gaps. It finds that the world is still falling short on its commitments to women and girls.
There are some points of light. They include declining poverty, narrowing of gender gaps in education, and a push for positive legal reforms. Yet, just six years before the 2030 deadline for the SDGs, not a single indicator under Goal 5, gender equality, has been fully achieved.
Ending extreme poverty among women could take 137 more years at the current rate of change. No country has all relevant laws to prohibit discrimination, prevent gender-based violence, uphold equal rights in marriage and divorce, guarantee equal pay, and provide full access to sexual and reproductive health.
Gender parity in parliaments may not be reached before 2063. The report stresses the high cost of not investing in women’s rights and calls attention to proven solutions that benefit women, girls, and entire societies. It champions radical action to shift the current trajectory and dramatically accelerate progress on gender equality and women’s rights.
Access here the full report published by UN Women on 16 September 2024.
Centre for Gender And Politics (CGAP) is a volunteer led think tank based in India that contributes to a high-quality scholarship on the intersection of gender, politics and South Asia. We are a platform for researchers, policymakers and the public to engage in a positive discourse on furthering gender diversity in politics with contextual nuances of South Asia as a focus.
Our Mission
Raise awareness and enable research on exceptional leadership at the intersection of Gender, Politics and South Asia.
Themes
Awareness on Women's Political Leadership
We are committed to highlighting the accounts of women's political leadership in South Asia. Our goal is to challenge the common portrayal of women in South Asia as powerless and victimised. Through the use of the 'language of leadership', we hope to bring attention to the important role that women play in shaping political discourse and decision-making.
Building Solidarity and Allyship
Through the roundtables, local events and engagement with leaders in the political system, we have been working towards encouraging solidarity and allyship across South Asian researchers and leaders.
Research
We want to bridge the research gap on gender and politics in South Asia through studies, reports and articles. Our regional focus is home to more than a billion non-native English speakers, so we try to simplify the language of our research while maintaining academic robustness in every research we publish.
Click here to check their website and their work in South Asia.
Image credits: Centre for Gender And Politics
Haiti’s transitional government is promising to restore democracy, human rights, and stability after years of crisis, but in practice it is excluding women and ignoring their distinct needs. It is thus on course to perpetuate long-standing patterns of discrimination that have historically left Haiti’s women at the margins of public life and made them objects of endemic gender-based violence (GBV). Global experience indicates that this policy failing will also weaken Haiti’s transition as a whole.
Haitian feminist and human rights activists are fighting back with a proposed Policy Framework for an Effective and Equitable Transition that identifies established legal rights, obligations, and best practices necessitating women’s inclusion in Haiti’s transition, and offers concrete recommendations for corrections to the exclusionary policies adopted by the transitional government to date.
The Framework’s urgent adoption is imperative. If implemented, it will help to preserve the transition as a mechanism for stabilising democracy and sustainable development while advancing women’s rights in Haiti.
An ongoing tradition of neglecting women
Discrimination against women and girls has always been a feature of Haitian society, including as a legacy of abuse towards Black women’s bodies born of colonialism and enslavement. Women and girls face added barriers to education, accessing funds and resources, and participating in the formal economy. They have been kept out of positions of authority and political leadership. Indeed, Haiti has had one of the lowest levels of women’s political representation in the world, often suppressed by targeted violence. Pervasive patriarchal and discriminatory stereotypes exacerbate such structural barriers through expectations around family roles, gendered activities, and permissive attitudes towards GBV. These patterns enable pervasive gendered violence and are in turn deepened by it. Impunity has been the norm.
Read here the full article published by The New Humanitarian on 4 September 2024.
Image credits: The New Humanitarian
The National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) has declared that democracy cannot be considered complete when women are excluded from policy-making processes.
This assertion was made by the Director-General of NILDS, Prof. Abubakar Sulaiman, during the 2024 Gender and Inclusion Summit organised by the Policy Innovation Centre (PIC).
The summit, themed "Reimagining Gender Inclusive Pathways and Partnerships for Poverty Reduction," brought together key stakeholders to address the intersection of gender inclusion and poverty alleviation.
Prof. Sulaiman emphasised the critical role of women in governance, stating, "Democracy is not complete when the massive majority of our women are excluded from policy-making."
He highlighted the importance of strategic partnerships in fostering innovation and enabling stakeholders to share ideas and reflect on progress.
"It is imperative for a diverse range of stakeholders to systematically collaborate across different social sectors to explore gender-related avenues toward realising the collective goal of alleviating poverty," he added.
Read here the full article published by Pulse Nigeria on 4 September 2024.
Image credits: Pulse Nigeria
The passage of the Affirmative Action (Gender Equality) Bill by the country’s parliament on 9 August 2024 marked a victory for women’s rights in Ghana. The bill, which has been years in the making, is the result of several actors, allies and activists lobbying and protesting for over a decade. The bill in it its current form makes it compulsory to have women either elected or appointed to major decision-making organs of public life. The Conversation Africa spoke to lawyer and gender scholar Josephine Jarpa Dawuni about the key aspects of the bill.
What are the key aspects of the new law?
The bill attempts to ensure the achievement of gender equality in the political, social, economic, educational and cultural spheres of Ghanaian society.
Major decision-making sectors covered by the current version of the bill are public offices such as ministerial positions and the Council of State (the advisory body of the president). There are also clauses that cover the public service, the judiciary and trade unions.
One clause mandates the government to engage in gender-responsive budgeting. Ministries and agencies of government must include a budget line to deal with gender-specific and gender-sensitive issues identified in the plans of those agencies.
Read here the full article published by The Conversation on 3 September 2024.
Image credits: The Conversation
This policy guidance provides a range of good practice options for advancing gender equality in the content of constitutions. It contributes to, and complements, the capacity-building support that United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) staff in country and regional offices provide to a range of national partners and stakeholders for different aspects of constitution-making (which includes but is not limited to support for the drafting of new constitutions and the revision of existing constitutions). Other UNDP initiatives provide guidance and support for the process of constitution-making. This policy guidance is designed to build the capacity of UNDP staff to advocate for the advancement of gender equality and women’s human rights in the content of constitutions. It is intended to provide technical support for a range of partners and national stakeholders involved in constitution-making, including; legislatures, constituent assemblies, constitutional review committees or commissions, governments, civil society organizations and legislative drafters. Through the inclusion of numerous examples from existing constitutions, it aims to foster UNDP entry points for pursuing South–South exchanges through which countries can benefit from, and utilize, the good practice constitutional provisions of similarly situated countries. It also aims to raise awareness of the importance of advancing gender equality in the content of constitutions. With this in mind, examples have been chosen based on the de jure constitutional formulation rather than the record of gender equality in the particular country.
As per the statues of international IDEA, the Secretary-General reports to the Council of Member States on the overall implementation of the Institute’s activities. In April 2014, as part of the Mid-Term Strategy Review, Member States recommended that the organization continue to strengthen its communication about results. This fifth International IDEA Annual Results Report therefore presents improved qualitative reporting of results, giving more information beyond the simple implementation of activities.
Research on women’s political participation at the community level was undertaken by Womankind in four very different countries – Ghana, Zimbabwe, Nepal and Afghanistan. The work in each context intends to increase women’s political participation and voice. The time available for the research was limited but much was achieved through the participation of Womankind staff and the deep involvement of Womankind’s partners working in each country; this enabled easy access to the women who work with, know and trust the partners. Women’s own situation varied across each country and between the countries; some had previous experience of engagement in public spaces while others were largely confined to their homes; some had formal education, while many were illiterate; some had access to trading and other livelihood work, others were financially dependent within their households. Their starting points for engagement with political influencing at the local level were disparate. Similarly, the political contexts into which they were moving in terms of local governance structures and processes were also diverse. In some, the Government had set up quotas and specific allocations for women, the poorest and the marginalised, such as Dalits, in others there were no such legal or statutory provisions and leverage on those with power over key resources, such as Local Government officials and Councillors, was very limited. In spite of these wide variations, it became apparent that achieving political change is challenging, often dependent on the political will of local officials, and policies made at national level are not necessarily implemented, or easy to get enacted locally.
Freedom House has published its new report ‘Freedom on the Net 2016. Silencing the Messenger: Communication Apps Under Pressure’.
Internet freedom has declined for the sixth consecutive year, with more governments than ever before targeting social media and communication apps as a means of halting the rapid dissemination of information, particularly during anti-government protests.
Public-facing social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have been subject to growing censorship for several years, but in a new trend, governments increasingly target voice communication and messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram. These services are able to spread information and connect users quickly and securely, making it more difficult for authorities to control the information landscape or conduct surveillance.
These are the key findings:
- Internet freedom around the world declined in 2016 for the sixth consecutive year.
- Two-thirds of all internet users – 67 percent – live in countries where criticism of the government, military, or ruling family are subject to censorship.
- Social media users face unprecedented penalties, as authorities in 38 countries made arrests based on social media posts over the past year. Globally, 27 percent of all internet users live in countries where people have been arrested for publishing, sharing, or merely “liking” content on Facebook.
- Governments are increasingly going after messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram, which can spread information quickly and securely.
This year, the report highlights some internet freedom issues as they affect women specifically. The India report, highlights research which explores the negative effect of online harassment on women's participation online, as well the unique threats faced by female online activists in Mexico who challenge the social and institutional norms which tolerate violence against women. There is also an emphasis on the specific economic and professional disadvantages faced by Nigerian women who lack access to the internet.
With the adoption of the General Assembly and Security Council resolutions on sustaining peace and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a multilateral policy consensus is emerging around a common vision for peaceful societies. Building and promoting positive peace, rather than containing conflict and its consequences, is recognized as a more effective strategy for addressing today’s complex and interlinked global challenges. These global frameworks treat prevention as an integral part of effective and participatory governance and view peace as both an enabler and an outcome of sustainable development. Under this broad conception of peace, all groups and individuals are free to pursue their needs and aspirations without fear, with equal opportunities, with justice, and in security.
With no political solution on the horizon to end the conflict in Syria, it is clear that humanitarian agencies must continue to prepare for a protracted conflict. In late 2013, the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) undertook an extensive literature review and a month-long field assessment in Jordan, including indepth interviews, focus group meetings and observation. The goal of the project was to identify how the humanitarian community was integrating existing gender guidance across all sectors and whether gender was being dealt with centrally as an institutionalized way of working rather than peripherally. It looked at the ways in which humanitarian agencies, including UN agencies and international and local organizations, assessed these needs and planned their programs. It also asked questions about the opportunities and good practices and models for promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.