Parliaments & Representatives
Political empowerment of women is a critical gender equality indicator and is essential for policymaking aimed at advancing the well-being of women and girls.
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 5.5 aims to ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life. One of the major indicators of this target is the proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments and local governments.
Click here to read the full article published by The Wire on 3 October 2023.
The publication represents the findings of a national survey on the violence against women in politics in Georgia, gathering women’s experiences in politics in Georgia. Namely, it examines the factors that facilitate and obstruct women’s engagement in politics, including the forms of violence against women in politics, women’s experiences with seeking support, and the impact of violence on women’s concentration in politics and leadership.
Click here to read the full article published by the EU Neighbours on 4 October 2023.
There are slightly more males than females born into the world, according to UN data on sex ratios at birth, which shows 1.058 males born for every female in 2021. It’s an extremely small difference – so small that it’s practically a 50:50 split – yet that even divide is not reflected in politics or business.Just 13 of 190 countries tracked by the UN had women in at least half of ministerial positions at the start of this year.
Click here to read the full article published by The European Sting on 3 October 2023.
In the spirit of celebration of Nigeria’s 63rd Independence anniversary, northern women in Adamawa State have called for more inclusion in the political space.
While commemorating with Nigerians, a member representing Demsa constituency Kate Raymond Mamuno reiterated the need for involvement of more women in politics, stating that women who were able to break the barrier of culture and religion have made meaningful contributions in the governance of communities, states and country at large.
Click here to read the full article published by Business Day on 3 October 2023.
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The inclusion of women in politics should be about gender equality, political accountability, and basic human rights rather than a political slogan. In Japan, female political appointments seem to be more about garnering praise, goodwill, and votes.
Click here to read the full article published by The Diplomat on 3 October 2023.
Power is a concept synonymous with DC—in its symbolism, its offices, its people. Many Washingtonians hold power by virtue of their positions, titles, and affiliations. For others, power is intrinsic and follows them wherever they go. Some are obvious in their authority. Others pull the strings of influence and change discreetly.
One thing is certain: More and more of the most powerful people in the city—in all of those capacities—are women. A decade ago, a list of Washington’s Most Powerful Women was not nearly as long. This time around, we had to make some hard decisions to keep it from overflowing the allotted pages.
Click here to read the full article published by the Washingtonian on 2 October 2023.
This Issues Brief aims to clearly delineate the issues at stake by analysing the results of a first study specifically devoted to the subject of sexism, harassment and violence against women in parliament. It seeks to clarify what this phenomenon consists of, where, why and in what forms it occurs, who are the perpetrators and what is its prevalence.
Click here to access the brief.
Gender equality is fundamental to responsive and accountable democratic societies. Women’s representation in elected institutions in equal proportion to men is key to the credibility and legitimacy of parliaments, national assemblies and local governments. Yet, globally, just over a fifth of members of parliament are women.
To combat discriminatory legislation and policies and improve gender equality outcomes in policymaking, elected representatives in countries in the region have established structures and strategic plans to improve women’s political participation and gender equality. UNDP has facilitated the creation of such structures in many countries, recognizing the important role they play in empowering women as parliamentary representatives, supporting the emergence of gender-sensitive parliaments, and adopting gender-sensitive policy and legislative frameworks. The UNDP Gender Equality Strategy 2014-2017 highlights the critical importance of gender equality and women’s participation in decision-making to sustainable development, and calls for the empowerment of women as voters, political actors and decision-makers.
This paper examines UNDP’s parliamentary assistance programming and support to existing gender equality initiatives in political participation, in particular, the role and impact of parliamentary structures for gender equality in the ECIS region. It illuminates existing and planned UNDP parliamentary assistance initiatives, highlights good practice and identifies entry points for replication or scaling up. Its findings are intended to assist members of parliament and parliamentary institutions as well as civil society organizations and international organizations in advancing gender equality in parliamentary practices. Click here for more information.
Extensive research shows that when women run for office, they perform just as well as men. Yet women remain severely under-represented in our political institutions. In this report, we argue that the fundamental reason for women’s under-representation is that they do not run for office. There is a substantial gender gap in political ambition; men tend to have it, and women don’t.
The results put forward in this report are based on the Citizen Political Ambition Panel Study, a research project the authors Richard L. Fox and Jennifer L. Lawless have been conducting over the course of the last seven years. In 2001, they surveyed more than 3,700 lawyers, business leaders and executives, educators, and political activists about whether they ever considered running for office. They re-surveyed more than 2,000 of these individuals in 2008. Because they surveyed well-matched pools of men and women who work in professions that most typically precede a political candidacy, they could provide the first comprehensive investigation of the process by which women and men decide to enter the electoral arena. They could also determine the extent to which political ambition has changed over time.
The authors offer clear and compelling evidence that women, even in the highest tiers of professional accomplishment, are substantially less likely than men to demonstrate ambition to seek elected office. These results hold regardless of age, partisan affiliation, income and profession.
The authors link the persistent gender gap in political ambition to several factors. Women are less likely than men to be willing to endure the rigors of a political campaign. They are less likely than men to be recruited to run for office. They are less likely than men to have the freedom to reconcile work and family obligations with a political career. They are less likely than men to think they are “qualified” to run for office. And they are less likely than men to perceive a fair political environment.
In the end, this report documents how far from gender parity we remain, as well as the barriers and obstacles we must still overcome in order to achieve it. But the results also offer guidance to organizations and individuals seeking to increase the number of women in elected positions. Recruiting women candidates, disseminating information about the electoral environment and working with women to quell their anxiety about campaigning can help narrow the gender gap in political ambition and increase women’s numeric representation.
Access the report here.
Gender mainstreaming has been embraced internationally as a strategy towards realizing gender equality. Gender mainstreaming has a double dimension: it requires both integrating a gender perspective to the content of the different policies, and addressing the issue of representation of women and men in the given policy area. Both dimensions – gender representation and gender responsive content - need to be taken into consideration in all phases of the policymaking process.
Equality between women and men is recognized by the EU as a fundamental right, a common value of the EU, and a necessary condition for the achievement of the EU objectives of growth, employment and social cohesion. Since 1996, the Commission committed itself to a “dual approach‟ towards realizing gender equality. This approach involves mainstreaming a gender perspective in all policies, while also implementing specific measures to eliminate, prevent or remedy gender inequalities. Both approaches go hand in hand, and one cannot replace the other. Within the European Parliament, the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM Committee) is the main body in charge of promoting gender equality and gender mainstreaming in all the EP‟s policy and legislative processes. Click here to access the report of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality on gender mainstreaming in the work of the European Parliament for 2015.
The UCLG Standing Committee on Gender Equality monitors and promotes the participation of women at local level across the world. The Committee firmly believes that the participation of women in local decision-making is the foundation of global development. The Standing Committee works with local elected women and grassroots organizations to build their capacities and increase women’s representation.
Local and regional governments have a long track record of working internationally for gender equality, with a particular focus on increasing the representation of local elected women and the promoting the participation of all women in local decision-making:
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Click here to read the UCLG Standing Committee on Gender Equality's report on the role of local governments in advancing and promoting gender equality for sustainability.
The aim of the project was to examine the advisability of creating a new mechanism to address laws that discriminate against women. The terms of reference specified two key objectives. The first was to overview existing UN mechanisms to ascertain the extent to which they addressed the issue of discriminatory laws. This involved interviewing UN human rights and agency officials working in both Geneva and New York1 and also reviewing the reports and jurisprudence of human rights committees and special procedure mechanisms. The second was to try to get national data on laws that discriminate against women. This was to be done by means of a questionnaire. On the basis of the data gathered, the consultant was required to advise on whether a special mechanism addressing discriminatory laws was needed (...)