Women's Leadership
The ninth National Assembly of Nigeria squandered an unparalleled chance to promote equitable political representation and gender empowerment by rejecting landmark gender bills, including the Reserved Seats for Women Bill (HB 1349 & SB 440). As the public hearing for this bill kicks off today, Monday, September 22, 2025, under the chairmanship of Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, the nation stands at a crossroads in its journey toward gender-inclusive democracy. Activists, including renowned human rights advocate, Aisha Yesufu, are calling on the tenth Assembly to right past wrongs and cement their legacy by passing the bill.
The gathering brought together political leaders from around the world who collectively reflected on a vision of a future in which women not only participate equally in decision-making, but also actively shape global policies in the interests of peace, sustainability and equality.
On the occasion of the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Vice President of the Parliament of Montenegro, Zdenka Popović, participated in the event with the theme "Positive Future", organized by the global network WPL (Women Political Leaders) at the invitation of WPL President Silvana Koh Mehrin.
As announced by the Parliament of Montenegro, the gathering brought together political leaders from around the world who jointly reflected on a vision of a future in which women not only participate equally in decision-making, but also actively shape global policies in the interest of peace, sustainability and equality.
"Vice President Popović used this opportunity for a series of important bilateral meetings with prominent international officials and leaders. Among the interlocutors were: Director-General of the World Health Organization Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, former President of Finland Tarja Halonen, former President of Ethiopia Sahle-Work Zewde, President of WPL Silvana Koh-Mehrin, as well as President and CFO of Salesforce, Robin Washington," it was announced.
The Women's Political Rights Forum has submitted six-point demands to the Election Commission (EC), calling for electoral reforms ahead of the 13th national elections.
The delegation met Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin at the Election Commission Building in Agargaon this afternoon (23 September).
The forum demanded mandatory nomination of women candidates, leadership roles for women within party structures, allocation of campaign funds equal to the expenditure limit, policies to prevent harassment both online and offline, direct elections to reserved parliamentary seats, and the introduction of 'no' votes in all constituencies. A written proposal outlining these demands was formally submitted to the EC during the meeting.
The meeting was led by Maheen Sultan, member of the Women's Affairs Reform Commission, and attended by Sadaf Saz, executive council member of Naripokkho; Seema Dutta, president of Bangladesh Nari Mukti Kendra; and Shyamoli Shil, president of Nari Samhati. Four election commissioners — Abdur Rahmanel Machud, Tahmida Ahmed, Md Anwarul Islam Sarkar, and Abul Fazal Md Sanaullah — along with EC Secretary Akhtar Ahmed, were also present.
New Zealand has brought in a Swedish economist to run its central bank as it seeks to end a period of turmoil at the top of the institution and steer the country away from the brink of a “double-dip” recession. Anna Breman, who has been first deputy governor of the Sveriges Riksbank in Sweden since 2019, will become the first female governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand when she takes up the role in December. Her appointment follows a period of recent upheaval at the central bank, where her predecessor Adrian Orr abruptly stood down this year due to a disagreement with the government over the institution’s budget. Neil Quigley, chair of the central bank, also departed last month. The RBNZ canvassed 300 candidates for the role, according to finance minister Nicola Willis, who in a statement on Wednesday praised Breman’s “impressive blend of technical skills and organisational leadership experience”.
On this International Day of Peace on September 21, the call for unity and reconciliation resonates worldwide but for women in conflict zones, peace is not just a principle to celebrate, it is a daily act of survival and rebuilding. Local community and government leaders, health workers, policymakers, and mothers sustain fragile trust in communities torn apart by violence. They rebuild, they console, they negotiate. Their actions and voices are critical in peace and security efforts, yet their stories seldom receive the recognition they deserve.
The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda acknowledges the meaningful perspectives that women bring to the table, drawing them from the margins to the center. Rooted in UN Security Council Resolution 1325, this framework emphasizes that decisions about peace must meaningfully include women. In alignment with the aims of the WPS agenda, organizations like Our Secure Future are leading initiatives to advance women’s roles in peace and security efforts in order to enable more effective policy-making and lasting peace. Evidence consistently shows that when women fully participate in peace processes, peace agreements tend to endure and carry meaning beyond words.
However, women remain underrepresented in peace processes globally. In 2023, women constituted only 9.6 percent of negotiators, 13.7 percent of mediators, and 26.6 percent of signatories in peace and ceasefire agreements, a notable improvement from earlier figures, yet still far short of parity even as their informal leadership continues to shape trust and dialogue in countless ways.
The harassment of women is nothing alien in Bangladesh, but when it comes to politics, the hostility is sharpened and deliberate. Women candidates, and anyone who dares to support them, are unfairly attacked, judged, and harassed. The recent student council elections in our biggest universities made this painfully clear. The misogyny, the character assassination, the filth in the comment sections of social media platforms, it is all meant to remind women of one thing: Politics is not your field.
I am no fan of BNP politician Rumin Farhana. But it stuck in my head when I scrolled through a news post about her; the comments were filled with bigotry, obscenity, and misogyny. This is the norm, but when the subject is a woman in politics, the ugliness multiplies. She is not attacked for her politics, but for her personal choices, for being unmarried, for simply existing as a woman in public life. The cruelty is staggering.
This cruelty is not just reserved for national figures. At Dhaka University, female candidates contesting the Ducsu elections have faced waves of online abuse. Obscene comments under campaign posts, sexually explicit inbox messages, doctored videos, even rape threats -- this is the reality of student politics for women.
One incident was so severe it reached the High Court: After a left alliance candidate filed a petition, a student posted a call for her “gang rape” on Facebook. The offender was suspended, but almost every woman candidate reported cyberbullying. As one described, social media had become a “weapon to bring down opponents.” Misogyny here is not about ideology. It is about punishing women for daring to get involved in politics at all.
Advancing Gender Equality in National Climate Plans: Progress and Higher Ambitions highlights the latest data on country progress in integrating gender considerations into their national climate plans, or Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), under the UNDP Climate Promise initiative. UNDP supports 120 countries through the Climate Promise to reach their climate goals as part of the Paris Agreement. The brief also explores how countries can scale up ambitions on gender integration in the NDC implementation process, as well as the challenges and opportunities that could arise as countries move from pledges to realizing these gender commitments.
Click here to access the report.
This article analyses how women governors, mayors, and local elected officials promoted public health and social protection in countries where men chief executives failed to take steps to contain the virus. We focus on adverse circumstances in six cases: Brazil, the United States, the Philippines, Japan, Mexico, and India. While individual women may not see their leadership in feminist terms, their pandemic response contrasted with men chief executives’ hypermasculine bravado and slapdash decision-making. Women leaders relied on science, co-ordinated community outreach, and attended to the needs of marginalised groups. Their stories reveal women’s resiliency, resourcefulness, and resolve at the local level.
Click here to access the article
Indians accept women as political leaders, but many favor traditional gender roles in family life.
More than half a century ago, India was one of the first countries in the world to elect a woman as prime minister, and the country currently has several highly influential women politicians, including Sonia Gandhi, the head of one of the major national parties. Today, most Indians say that “women and men make equally good political leaders,” and more than one-in-ten feel that women generally make better political leaders than men, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey of nearly 30,000 adults throughout India. Only a quarter of Indian adults take the position that men make better political leaders than women.
Click here to access the report.
Political gender equality is a central pillar of democracy, as all people, independently of gender, should have an equal say in political representation and decision-making. In practice, democracies are generally better at guaranteeing gender equality than most non-democratic regimes. According to International IDEA’s Global State of Democracy Indices, 41 per cent of democracies have high levels of gender equality, while this is the case in only two of the world’s authoritarian regimes (Belarus and Cuba). The democracies with low levels of gender equality are also exceptional (only four, all weak democracies - Iraq, Lebanon, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea). Low levels of gender equality are much more common in non-democracies – more than one third of them fall into this category.
Despite more than half the countries in the world being democracies of some form, levels of political gender equality have not kept pace with democratic progress. In 2022, only 26 per cent of legislators in the world are women, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. At the current rate, gender parity will not be achieved until 2062, according to International IDEA’s estimate. The proportion of women heads of state is even lower. In 2022, only 19 countries in the world have women in the highest office of executive power. Of these, all except four are democracies. Moreover, as global democratic progress is threatened by rising authoritarianism and democratic backsliding, fragile levels of gender equality, further weakened by the pandemic, are at risk of more setbacks, as gender is increasingly used as a weapon in such processes.
Click here to read the full article published by International IDEA on 7 March 2022.
The pantheon of autocratic leaders includes a great many sexists, from Napoléon Bonaparte, who decriminalized the murder of unfaithful wives, to Benito Mussolini, who claimed that women “never created anything.” And while the twentieth century saw improvements in women’s equality in most parts of the world, the twenty-first is demonstrating that misogyny and authoritarianism are not just common comorbidities but mutually reinforcing ills. Throughout the last century, women’s movements won the right to vote for women; expanded women’s access to reproductive health care, education, and economic opportunity; and began to enshrine gender equality in domestic and international law—victories that corresponded with unprecedented waves of democratization in the postwar period. Yet in recent years, authoritarian leaders have launched a simultaneous assault on women’s rights and democracy that threatens to roll back decades of progress on both fronts.
Click here to read the full article published by Foreign Affairs.
Fawcett's Sex and Power 2022 Index is a biennial report which charts the progress towards equal representation for women in top jobs across the UK. Yet again, the report reveals the pace of change is glacial in the majority of sectors and shows that women are outnumbered by men 2:1 in positions of power.
Women of colour are vastly under-represented at the highest levels of many sectors and alarmingly, they are missing altogether from senior roles such as Supreme Court Justices, Metro Mayors, Police and Crime Commissioners and FTSE 100 CEOs.
Click here to download the report.