Women's Leadership
By Clarisse Sih and Bibbi Abruzzini
For over 30 years, women in the Horn of Africa have fought tirelessly against violence, discrimination, and systemic oppression. One of the leading voices in this struggle is Hala Al-Karib, a Sudanese activist and the regional director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA).
At the heart of her work is a profound belief: “We are not just imagining power. We are claiming it.”
As part of the Forus March With Us campaign, Al-Karib shares her insights on the state of women’s rights, the barriers they face, and the unstoppable force of grassroots feminist movements shaping the future.
A life shaped by struggle and resistance
Growing up in Sudan, Al-Karib witnessed firsthand the deep inequalities and ethnic divisions that fueled systemic oppression. Her activism began early, inspired by the resilience of the women around her:
I learned early on that oppression exists in many forms — against women, against marginalized communities, against those who challenge power. And I also learned that to survive, we must resist.
Full article available here.
High on the slopes of Mount Meru, in Tanzania’s Arumeru District, lies the quiet village of Mulala. With just 2,000 residents, it is easy to miss — but it is here that one woman, known simply as Mama Anna, has reshaped what local development can look like.
Her transformation from subsistence bean farmer to community educator and entrepreneur began with one unexpected gift: a cow.
Mama Anna — Anna Pallangyo — is a Meru woman, a mother of six, and one of 717 women in the FAIDA Small Enterprise Promotion network. With only a primary school education and limited resources, she began by growing beans to support her family. But the returns were modest, and she saved what she could, determined to find another way.
When a development worker brought her a cow, she wasn’t sure what to do. “What can I do with a gombe [cow]?” she asked aloud. Then she learned to milk it.
Each day, she served milk to her family and friends. When the milk began to overflow, she made a decision: “I’ll sell the maziwa (milk).” Every morning, she walked down the long hill to town; every afternoon, she climbed back up, coins chattering in her pockets “like monkeys.”
Full article published here.
In 1983, Maria da Penha Maia Fernandes, a Brazilian biopharmacist, survived two homicide attempts at home. The first one left her paralyzed from the waist down after she was shot while she was asleep. In the second attempt, she was almost electrocuted in the shower.
In 1991, Penha saw the trial, which convicted her ex-husband of the attacks, being annulled. Five years later, a new trial found him guilty again, but he walked free. It took 19 years and six months, risking the statute of limitations to have him arrested. In 2006, her name became one of the best-known in Brazil when it became associated with a federal law that aims to protect women from domestic and family violence.
The path between the violent episodes that changed her life and the law that tries to avoid this type of crime was possible mainly due to international pressure, Penha acknowledges in a video conversation with Global Voices. In 2001, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) convicted Brazil of negligence and omission in her case, and this led to the law’s creation.
Penha’s name is now also linked to police patrols and other public policies regarding gender violence in the country. A poll by the Brazilian Senate, from 2023, however, pointed out that three out of four Brazilian women know little or nothing at all about the law itself. It also showed that around 30 percent of women in Brazil have suffered domestic violence at the hands of a man.
Full article published here.
GIESSEN, Germany / BETH NAHRIN — On the sidelines of the Syriac Women’s Conference held last Saturday simultaneously in Beth Zalin (Qamishli), North and East Syria; Ankawa, Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI); and Giessen, Germany, under the slogan No Equality Without Justice, No Justice Without Women, our newsdesk conducted interviews with several women to discuss the conference’s significance for Syriac (Aramean–Assyrian–Chaldean) women.
Siham Quryo, Co-Chair of the People’s Democratic Council within the Democratic Autonomous Administration of the Region of North and East Syria (DAARNES), stated that the Syriac Women’s Conference was held across all regions where the Syriac (Aramean–Assyrian–Chaldean) people reside, with the goal of establishing a Syriac Women’s Council to represent Syriac (Aramean–Assyrian–Chaldean) women globally and to ensure their active role in shaping the future.
She emphasized the urgent need for Syriac (Aramean–Assyrian–Chaldean) women’s participation in building a new Syria that reflects justice, equality, and inclusion.
Full article published here.
“You will work hard.” That was the promise former medical doctor Jennifer Geerlings-Simons made during her presidential election campaign. It was a phrase equal parts warning and invitation, and now, Suriname, the Dutch-speaking Caribbean nation situated on the shoulder of South America, is set to have her as its first-ever woman president.
In the context of media freedom, identity, and political legacy in Suriname, the weight of this moment is being felt across the nation, to the diaspora beyond, but as any woman in public life knows, “firsts” come with double binds. Geerlings-Simons’ presidency has the potential to be scrutinised not solely through a political lens, but also a gendered one. However, her election is historic not simply because of her gender, but because of what she represents: a country at a crossroads, reckoning with its past and daring to imagine a different future.
A coalition and a chance
Following the general election on May 25, Suriname’s political landscape underwent significant changes. To begin with, no single party secured a majority. However, on May 27, Geerlings-Simons’ National Democratic Party (NDP) — once led by the controversial former president Desi Bouterse — announced a six-party coalition totalling 34 of 51 parliamentary seats, enough for a supermajority and to install her as president.
Geerlings-Simons brings decades of political experience to the role. She has been a parliamentarian since 1996, was a former chair of the National Assembly, and has been the NDP’s party leader since July 2024. Now, at 72, she becomes a symbol of both continuity and rupture — a seasoned insider with an outsider’s promise of dismantling corruption, slimming government excess, and modernising the state.
Full article published here.
In Togo’s rural communities, women bear much of the family responsibilities. However, they remain committed to their communities’ development despite the socio-cultural pressures.
Several rural areas in the Kara region of northern Togo have poor infrastructure, affecting the communities in Bassar and the Kabye, Lamba, and Konkomba people. The roads are often impassable, and waterways hamper hospital access, posing significant healthcare challenges. The women working as community health workers must combine their professional and family responsibilities to provide essential care for their communities.
In Togo, women account for more than 51.3 percent of the population of over 9 million. The illiteracy rate is 33 percent for men and almost double that for women.
Women-specific challenges in rural communities
In traditional Togolese culture, gender stereotypes are still prevalent, often preventing women from standing up for themselves and making independent decisions.
Agriculture is the primary industry in rural areas. It employs 80 percent of the female working population in subsistence farming, helping them provide for their families and meet their everyday needs. However, only 15 percent hold land titles. This limited access to land ownership and agricultural credits makes them dependent on men for resources and decision-making. Many women often suffer discrimination and economic violence, which, according to a demographic study, is sometimes compounded by physical violence. Reports indicate that as many as 32 percent of Togolese women have been victims of physical or sexual abuse from the age of 15.
Full article available here.
- Since 1995, the world has made important strides in advancing gender equality. The increase in female representation in parliaments across the globe has been driving these advances, although there has been some progress on other indicators used to measure Gender Equality in the Global State of Democracy (GSoD) Indices.
- Democracies provide better guarantees for gender equality. Out of 29 countries that scored highly in the GSoD Indices on Gender Equality in 2018, 28 of them are democracies.
- There are wide regional variations in Gender Equality, with North America and Europe seeing the highest scores, and the Middle East the lowest. However, the greatest progress over the 25-year period has been achieved in Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
- The representation of women in parliament is considerably better today than 25 years ago. The world average has increased from 10 per cent in 1995 to 23 per cent in 2018 (and 24 per cent in 2019). The percentage of women legislators is highest in Latin America and the Caribbean (28 per cent), and lowest in the Middle East (11 per cent).
- Despite progress made to date, at the current rate it will take another 46 years to reach gender parity in all parliaments.
- Civic space is shrinking across all regions of the world and across all levels of democratic performance. The shrinking of civic space has had severe effects on women’s participation in civil society, as women’s organizations tend to be the most vulnerable, the least well-resourced and the least networked.
- Over the 25-year period since 1995, the global average of women’s participation in civil society organizations has seen very slow improvement. While the Middle East is the lowest performer, North America and Europe have the highest scores, although Europe has witnessed some declines in the last five years.
Click here to see the academic article.
Gender-based violence (GBV) increases during every type of emergency – whether economic crises, conflict or disease outbreaks. Pre-existing toxic social norms and gender inequalities, economic and social stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with restricted movement and social isolation measures, have led to an exponential increase in GBV. Many women are in ‘lockdown’ at home with their abusers while being cut off from normal support services.
This briefing note provides concrete actions and strategies that UNDP, UN agencies and other development partners can take to prevent and address GBV in the context of COVID-19. It includes recommendations for adapting dedicated GBV services and support to the crisis context, and for mainstreaming GBV prevention and response in 'non-GBV specific' interventions.
Click here to see the report.
Conventional wisdom holds that women politicians confront a parenting dilemma. Those with children are questioned about their ability to balance parental roles with political responsibilities, but child-free women are regarded as unable to relate to “ordinary” families or perform well in “feminine” policy areas. As both women and men are now balancing parenthood with politics, the time is ripe to re-investigate how cultural ideas about family life shape understandings of political leadership. By systematically comparing newspaper coverage of 22 Canadian and Australian government leaders with diverse families, our study investigates the ways in which discourses of family shape representations of high-profile politicians. It provides valuable insights into the ways in which politicians’ levels of conformity to the idealized western family model shape perceptions of political legitimacy and authenticity for women and men, and parents and non-parents. We find that when the families of newly elected leaders are discussed in newspaper coverage, the message conveyed is that only the “right” kind of family will facilitate political success.
Click here to see the Academic Article.
We assessed the effects of female political representation on mortality among children younger than age five in Brazil and the extent to which this effect operates through coverage with conditional cash transfers and primary care services. We combined data on under-five mortality rates with data on women elected as mayors or representatives in state and federal legislatures for 3,167 municipalities during 2000–15. Results from fixed-effects regression models suggest that the election of a female mayor and increases in the shares of women elected to state legislatures and to the federal Chamber of Deputies to 20 percent or more were significantly associated with declines in under-five mortality. Increasing the political representation of women was likely associated with beneficial effects on child mortality through pathways that expanded access to primary health care and conditional cash transfer programs.
Click here to read the full article published by Health Affairs on 6 November 2020.
The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, is proud to announce the launch of the online CAWP Women Elected Officials Database, a first-of-its-kind tool for exploring and analyzing women’s current and historical representation in the U.S. political system. The CAWP Women Elected Officials Database includes every woman officeholder in U.S. history at the federal, statewide elected executive, and state legislative levels. This tool expands on the officeholder database that CAWP has long kept and shared with researchers, and, crucially, transforms it into a searchable, online format for public access.
For further information, please click here.
Disappointed by the numerous failures of anticorruption reforms, international organisations, scholars and policy makers increasingly place their hopes on measures aimed at enhancing gender equality and in particular increasing the inclusion of female representatives in elected assemblies. Yet most studies to date focus on aggregate measures of corruption and fail to explain why the correlation between women's representation and levels of corruption occurs. Using newly collected regional‐level, non‐perception‐based measures of corruption, this study distinguishes between different forms of corruption and shows that the inclusion of women in local councils is strongly negatively associated with the prevalence of both petty and grand forms of corruption. However, the reduction in corruption is primarily experienced among women. This suggests that female representatives seek to further two separate political agendas once they attain public office: the improvement of public service delivery in sectors that tend to primarily benefit women; and the breakup of male‐dominated collusive networks.
Click here to see the academic article.