Women's Leadership
Recently, the minister responsible for women, family and community development, Nancy Shukri, reportedly said the 30% quota for women previously set by the government should be reconsidered given the current situation that “42% of women actively participated in decision making roles within the public service sector”.
The minister reportedly said many women now possess the qualifications, including experience and academic achievements, to compete equally with men in decision-making positions across various service levels.
“Considering that we have already surpassed the 30 per cent mark, reaching 42 per cent in the public sector, setting a new target at 50 per cent or beyond should not be hindered by ceilings or limitations,” she added.
Click here to read the full article published by Aliran on 19 February 2024.
Image source: Aliran
On 15 February 2024, an article titled “Why Cambodia needs to incorporate more women into its foreign policy process” was published on the Diplomat and has caught attention from various readers including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Cambodia, which is also now requesting for clarifications from the author. While the article highlighted the significance of having more women in leadership and decision-making positions and some important statistical facts on the disproportionately low number of women in politics and diplomatic field, it failed to acknowledge the efforts and significant progress made by the government over the years to promote and mainstream gender equality in all sectors.
In Cambodia, commitments to empower and increase women leadership come from the highest level of the government. As often heard, women are considered as the “backbone of the society and economy”. Gender equality has been one of the government’s priority agendas, as manifested in various national policies and strategies, the Rectangular Strategy, the National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP), the five-year Strategic Neary Rattanak, and National Plan for Sub-National Democratic Development (NP-SNDD), just to name a few.
Click here to read the full article published by the Khmer Times on 20 February 2024.
Image source: Khmer Times
For standing up to the dangerous elements of today’s political reality—racial and socio-economic disparities and crackdowns on dissent, among them—both Robredo in the Philippines and Márquez in Colombia faced threats online and offline.
The same year, in Colombia, Francia Márquez showed up in tough times. Running for president in a political terrain hardly conducive for a black candidate, let alone a rural single mother, she reduced hundreds to tears with her speech: ‘We’re not descendants of slaves. We’re descendants of free men and women who were enslaved.’
The two women have been strong voices of reason advocating against authoritarian environments in their respective democracies, as two documentaries—belonging to separate parts of the world but bearing themes that rhyme—showed at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah recently. .
Click here to read the full article published by Feminism in India on 19 February 2024.
Image source: Feminism in India
Women's political leadership is evolving, with both progress and challenges. Inspiring figures like Angela Merkel and Jacinda Ardern have made strides, but achieving gender parity is still over a century away. Local leadership and advocacy play crucial roles in this ongoing journey.
In the evolving landscape of global politics, a compelling narrative unfolds, revealing both progress and setbacks in the quest for gender parity in political representation. As we venture into 2024, the strides and struggles of women vying for political leadership positions paint a complex picture of the current state and the road ahead. While some regions celebrate breakthroughs, others confront enduring barriers, underscoring the multifaceted challenges women face in their political journeys.
The Landscape of Women in Politics: A Global Overview
At the forefront of this narrative are the 28 formidable women who, as of this year, helm the leadership as Heads of State or Government across 26 countries. Icons like Angela Merkel and Jacinda Ardern epitomize the resilience and visionary leadership that have paved the way for future generations. Despite these inspiring figures, the sobering reality emerges that achieving gender parity in executive government roles remains a distant goal, predicted to be over a century away. The underrepresentation extends to national parliaments, where women constitute a mere 26.5% of parliamentarians globally. However, there are glimmers of hope, as evidenced by Rwanda's remarkable 61.3% female representation in its parliament, leading the world in this aspect, with Cuba and New Zealand also making notable strides forward.
Click here to read the full article published by the BNN Breakings News on 18 February 2024.
Image source: BNN Breaking News
Ethical principles help us make positive and just decisions that contribute to the common good of all.
Reliability, honesty, integrity, fairness, and collaboration are a few of many ethical behaviors that fulfill basic human needs, prevent harm to people and the environment, and create credibility and trust. The consequences of unethical decisions include loss of trust, authoritarianism, autocracy, nepotism and corruption.
The controversial bill that reduced wetlands protection illustrates the importance of ethical decision-making. Despite opposition from wetland scientists and rejected attempts to amend the bill, legislators passed House Bill 1383 in a party-line vote, 64-30 in the House, 32-17 in the Senate. Some media reports stated that several legislators who voted in favor of the bill have ties to land development companies and lobbyist groups.
Click here to read the full article published by the Daily Journal on 15 February 2024.
Image source: League of Women Voters
In a panel on Feb. 5, Black female scholars from across the country came together to explore the power of Black women in American politics and their nuanced role as actors in the current political climate. The panel titled “Black Women’s Politics,” was hosted by the Women and Gender Studies, African American Studies, and Government departments to commemorate Black History Month.
The panel included Dr. Sharon Austin, professor of political science at the University of Florida; Dr. Ayana Best, assistant professor of political science at Howard University; Dr. Pearl Dowe, professor of political science and African American studies at Emory University; and Dr. Christine Slaughter, assistant professor of political science at Boston University. Alongside the five scholars, Dr. Nadia Brown, chair of the Women’s and Gender Studies department at Georgetown, moderated the discussion.
Click here to read the full article published by The Georgetown Voice on 13 February 2024.
Image source: The Georgetown Voice
Tool by Make Every Woman Count that monitors elections in Africa.
See it here.
MPs can sometimes be subject to human rights violations, ranging from arbitrary detention and exclusion from public life to even kidnapping and murder in the worst cases. The IPU has been defending MPs in danger for the past 40 years through its Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians.
The map below shows the latest alleged violations of MPs' human rights currently monitored by the IPU. Clicking on a country leads to the page of the parliament, from where you can access the latest information about the case.
See it here.
Violence against women in politics is an intolerable violation of women’s rights which poses fundamental challenges to democratic values and electoral processes. To tackle this issue, the Kofi Annan Foundation commissioned Carmen Alanis, the first female Chief Justice at the Superior Chamber of the Electoral Court of Mexico, and member of the Kofi Annan Foundation’s Electoral Integrity Initiative, to produce a policy paper which highlights the barriers women face in their attempts to access political spaces, as well as the challenges they encounter if elected to public office.
- In attempts to shed light on the extent of the problem, the paper addresses three vital questions:
- Why do women face barriers in exercising their political and electoral rights?
- If violence against women in politics is a global phenomenon with a negative impact on democracies, why is the problem still not being adequately addressed by states?
- Do current models of access to justice engage with the issue effectively?
The paper demonstrates that violence against women in politics undermines electoral integrity by disregarding the principles of universal suffrage and political equality. These principles are not being fulfilled in both newer and older democracies across the world, with various barriers to equal and universal political participation.
Click here to see the report.
Women participating in politics have navigated unique challenges and opportunities from the coronavirus pandemic. Governments around the world should take these steps to safeguard women’s political inclusion during the pandemic and beyond.
The coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt political processes around the world. Seventy-three elections have been postponed. Many parliaments have suspended or limited their activities, and over a hundred countries have restricted citizens’ freedom of assembly and expression in the name of public health. Authoritarian and authoritarian-leaning leaders have further taken advantage of the emergency to concentrate power in the executive branch.
Few analyses have probed the gendered consequences of these trends. In the media, the main narrative about gender and pandemic politics has centered on the perceived effectiveness of female politicians in responding to the crisis—including Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand. Yet these positive headlines conceal a more worrisome global picture: the pandemic’s profound political and socioeconomic effects could halt or reverse advances in women’s political inclusion.
Click here to read the full article published by Carnegie Endowment on 17 November 2020.
Women Political Leaders and Kantar came together in 2018 to create the Reykjavík Index for Leadership– the first measure of perceptions of women and men in terms of their suitability for leadership. The initial findings revealed significant, complex, and deep-seated prejudice towards women – where women were not seen as equally suitable to lead.
When the Reykjavík Index was launched, we acknowledged that progress in equality for women was far from guaranteed. Across the G7 group of countries, and in multiple areas of economic activity, many of the 2018 Index scores fell short of the target score of 100, which indicates a consensus across society that women and men are equally suited for leadership. Nevertheless, we fully hoped at that time to witness improvements in perceptions in the years to come, with scores of countries and sectors approaching the target score of 100.
Unfortunately, in 2020, the third year of Index results, we can only note a striking absence of progress. Indeed, this year cannot be called a period of advancement.
The Reykjavík Index for Leadership 2020-2021 presents findings drawn from the attitudes of over 20,000 people across ten countries – the G7 nations (comprising Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) along with India, Kenya, and Nigeria. We believe that the addition of new countries to the G7 nations will allow us to better observe whether progress is being made, where stereotypes endure, and where public policy or private sector intervention is making a difference.
A look at the average score for the G7 countries, which we can now track across three years, shows very little change: it remains a 73. This can be regarded as the gap between the ‘birthright’ of equality for men, and the everyday reality of women’s experiences with inequality across the world.
Click here to see the report.
This study applied a conceptual framework that uses a comparative and gendered approach to estimate the cost of politics, using a set of pre-identified variables regularly incurred by both candidates seeking political office and elected representatives while in office. This consideration was in line with the notion that analysis of election delivery and management should not be looked at in the realm of an event but rather as a cycle. The conceptual framework enabled the research team to arrive at both statistical and qualitative evidence regarding the cost of politics in Uganda.
Click here to see the report.