Women's Leadership
"Environmental work is meaningless and income-less. Why don't you go home and help your mother with housework?" This is what I frequently heard when I firstly began volunteering with the Qinghai Snowland Great Rivers Environmental Protection Association (SGR Association). Many couldn't understand why I dedicated my time to protecting our water sources, attending various trainings, and creating eco-friendly products to promote sustainable living. But I didn’t let their doubts stop me. The urgency of climate action is too significant to ignore.
I live in Qinghai Province, on the Tibetan Plateau in China. My journey into environmental work began in 2018 when I volunteered to start writing an eco-diary. I record daily observations of the local wildlife, and plants, changing weather patterns, and fluctuations in nearby water sources. Through this practice, I became deeply aware of how climate change was affecting my community.
Starting last year, our local water sources began to dry up, and the grassland in our summer pastures became increasingly scarce. The rising temperatures and decreased rainfall left our livestock with insufficient water and food. As a result, villagers were forced to travel further to get water and purchase additional grass to feed their cows, increasing family expenses. Moreover, the reduced yield of caterpillar fungus—used in traditional Chinese and Tibetan medicine—led to significant financial losses for many in the community.
Read here the full article published by UN Women Asia & The Pacific on 18 September 2024.
Japan could soon have its first female prime minister.
The country's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will later this month choose a new leader who will be virtually guaranteed the top job.
In the running are two formidable women: Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Economics Minister Sanae Takaichi.
Having either become prime minister would seem to be a dramatic leap forward for a country which lags behind most of the world in measures of political gender equality.
However, observers say having Ms Takaichi smash the political glass ceiling would not necessarily be good for progressive issues in Japan more generally.
Who are the women running for the leadership?
Ms Takaichi has been a member of Japan's diet, or parliament, since 1993 and ran unsuccessfully for the leadership of the LDP in 2021.
A protege of former prime minister Shinzo Abe, she has labelled her big spending economic stimulus policies "Sanaenomics" following his famous "Abenomics".
She's also known as a hardline conservative on social issues and often cites Margaret Thatcher, the UK's conservative "Iron Lady" prime minister from the 1980s, as an inspiration.
Read here the full article published by the ABC News on 13 September 2024.
Image credits: ABC News
What you need to know:
In the bustling corridors of the UN Kenya office, a quiet revolution has been taking place under the stewardship of an unassuming powerhouse. Anna Mutavati, with her calm demeanour and disarming simplicity, has been reshaping the landscape of women's rights and political participation in Kenya for the past five years.
As she prepares to ascend to a new role as Deputy Director of the UN Women regional office for Eastern and Southern Africa, her legacy serves as a testament to the power of dedicated leadership and strategic intervention.
Read here the full article published by The Nation on 10 September 2024.
Image credits: The Nation
In one of the biggest electoral years in recent history, 107 countries have never had a woman Head of State. In 2024, women held only 27 per cent of seats in national parliaments and 35.5 per cent of seats in local governments.
The United Nations promotes the principles that underly the ideal of democracy: peace, security, development, and human rights. In democratic systems, women and men have equal rights and are free from discrimination, and people have a say in decisions and can hold decision-makers accountable.Women’s political participation is critical for a well-functioning democracy.
Their inclusion is a matter of justice and a key factor in creating more effective governance. Having more women in policymaking has shown to help advance legislation on crucial issues, such as health, education, childcare, infrastructure and ending violence against women and serve as an inspiration for girls to pursue higher education and career opportunities.Yet, women’s voices are missing from decision-making in every region of the world.
On the International Day of Democracy on 15 September, and in the run-up to the 30th anniversary of the visionary Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action—the most comprehensive global agenda for the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls—find out why there are so few women in decision-making and what can be done to close the gap.
Read here the full article published by UN Women on 10 September 2024.
September 4, 2024 (JUBA) – The Tumaini Initiative and its mediators should adopt an inclusive, transparent, and people-centered mediation process, women leaders resolved during a round table discussion.
The group, in a communique, extended to Sudan Tribune, urged the mediators to visit South Sudan to consult with conflict-affected communities, stakeholders, and the broader population to gather their views and experiences.
“After thorough reflection and thought-provoking discussions, we agree upon and put forward the following key priority areas, as well as corresponding recommendations that call for an inclusive and holistic approach to addressing the challenges faced by South Sudanese women and girls,” it reads in part.
Represented by 16 different organizations, the coalition urged the government of South Sudan to expedite the adoption of the National Action Plan (NAP) 2020-2025 and allocate sufficient funding to the Ministry of Gender, Child, and Social Welfare to support its implementation.
All political parties, it noted, should adhere to the 35% affirmative action policy for women by appointing more women to leadership positions and cease the practice of replacing women in decision-making roles with men.
“Prioritize the Tumaini Peace process and address any contradictions between the Tumaini Initiative and the R-ACRSS through political dialogue and national consensus that includes women and civil society organizations,” reads the communique.
Read here the full article published by the Sudan Tribune on 4 September 2024.
Image credits: Sudan Tribune
One of the most exciting features of Bangladesh’s “Monsoon Revolution” were the visuals of courageous young girls and women on the streets, their defiant chants animating fierce feminist organizing and the individual and collective acts of rebellion of women against a powerful fascist regime.
They appealed to our conscience as daughters, sisters, mothers, and citizens, enabling us to overcome our fear of the unknown and leave our “natural domain” of the home to engage with the outside world of politics and public debate.
Indeed, the student-led uprising would not have been successful if ordinary girls and women had not mobilized in the public and private sphere to inform and shape public debate and shift public opinion.
Yet, as we celebrate the one month anniversary of the incredible achievements of the student-led uprising, the absence of women from political spaces driving the reformation agenda and in leadership positions in public office is alarming.
From the scattered presence of women in the interim government’s meetings to their limited inclusion in leadership positions in the chief adviser’s office and cabinet, women have been strikingly relegated to the backseat of the reformation process.
How did the face of the students' platform on anti-discrimination post August 5 become largely male? The masculine nature of the leadership, debate, and deliberations that excludes or limits participation of women in all their diversity undermines the revolutionary promise of the uprising and limits the possibilities of imagining an inclusive future.
Read here the full article published by Dhaka Tribune.on 6 September 2024.
Image credits: Dhaka Tribune
May 3: A preliminary gender audit of the South African elections due to be held on 8 May shows that while there will be a slight increase in women’s representation, women are still missing from the top echelons of political parties and from the media.
“On World Press Freedom Day it is an indictment on South Africa that women still constitute just one fifth of those whose views and voices are heard,” said GL CEO Colleen Lowe Morna at the launch of Gender Links report.
At 55% women will constitute the majority of voters in the 2019 South African elections. Gender Links predicts using available data that the proportion of women in the House of Assembly will increase from 40% in 2014 to 44% in 2019.
But, without a legislated quota, and with vacillating commitment by political parties to gender parity, South Africa will again miss the 50% mark. Apart from Agang, the political party formed by anti-apartheid activist Mamphela Ramphele that is expected to garner less than 1% of the vote, none of the political parties contesting has achieved gender parity in its top five.
“Male leaders either oppose quotas; fail to implement them; or backslide into misogynistic slurs despite the lofty language in their political manifestos,” noted GL advisor Kubi Rama who authored the report.
A further measure of women’s lack of #Voiceandchoice in our society is the fact that women sources in news coverage persists at 22% or about one fifth of those whose views and voices are heard in the elections. Despite being one of the most pressing social justice issues of our time, gender equality represents less than one percent of media coverage, according to Media Monitoring Africa.
“The message as South African go to the polls next week are clear,” says Rama. “Political parties need to engage with the fact the women constitute 55% of the electorate and address their concerns in manifestos, party lists and in leadership. The media must do better. Women sources are available but barely accessed.”
Click here to see the report.
Including women in local councils is strongly negatively associated with the prevalence of both petty and grand forms of corruption. This reduction in corruption is primarily experienced among women. A study suggests that female representatives seek to further two separate political agendas once they attain public office: 1) the improvement of public service delivery in sectors that tend to primarily benefit women, and 2) the breakup of male-dominated collusive networks.
Main points:
- Increased representation of women in elected office can reduce both petty and grand corruption.
- Women in elected office reduce corruption both because they are risk averse and because they have a different political agenda than men.
- Women in elected office reduce petty corruption in their efforts to improve public service delivery and grand corruption because it is detrimental to their political careers.
- Women in elected office reduce the rate of bribery for public services, particularly for women.
- Donors can promote women’s representation and reduced corruption through supporting the anti-corruption agendas chosen by women.
Click here to see the study.
South Africa has made great strides in establishing a constitutional and legislative framework for building a participatory democracy. This paper seeks to explore the extent to which existing participatory mechanisms enable active participation by women in municipal processes, and possible alternative approaches and models to strengthen this. A gap in studies thus far reveals the need to examine to what extent current participation mechanisms accommodate equity issues by enabling marginalized or vulnerable groups to participate in governance, and women living in poverty, in particular. The paper commences with an assessment of the existing policy framework for public participation, and then – drawing on literature and case studies on approaches and models for strengthening women's participation – puts forward recommendations in this regard.
Click here to see the report.
Although Sri Lanka has 51% women, their participation in local governance as well as in the national parliament is 5% in total. The strong social development indicator of women in areas such as health and education has not translated into their increased political participation. As such, this study focuses on the level of women’s participation in local governance and explores why there is a low level of political participation of women in local governance. Both quantitative and qualitative methods comprising of questionnaire survey, interviews and focus group discussions were employed in this study. The findings show organized collective involvement of women was effective only in social welfare, livelihood and social security than political participation. The study also reveals that the low level of political participation by women is attributable to biological, economic, psychological, religious and political factors. Overall, it was found that although women are interested in participating in local governance, they have a lack of space for political participation.
Click here to see the report.
Women are underrepresented in most elected and appointed positions in local government in the United States. This essay details what we know about women’s representation in cities and counties, with a discussion of the factors associated with women’s higher or lower levels of representation. The effects of women’s lack of parity are then discussed including policy attitudes, the policy process, and policy outcomes. In sum, this essay organizes knowledge on women in local government, identifies gaps in what we know, and promotes future investigations to expand our knowledge of gender politics, local politics and governance, and public policy.
Click here to see the report.
Gender quotas have diffused rapidly around the globe in recent decades, suggesting widespread and dramatic transformations in women's access to political power. Yet, quotas often face serious challenges following their introduction, resulting in a gap between quota requirements and electoral outcomes. To explore these dynamics, this article develops a theoretical account of how and why political elites resist the changes called for by quota reforms. It argues that three tools predicated upon women's exclusion from the political sphere – false universalism and political principles, male power and political survival, and gender and leadership norms – are often mobilized to render quotas illegitimate, making resistance understandable and, indeed, even desirable on a host of grounds. The article then catalogues trends in resistance at different stages of the electoral process, integrating materials from case studies around the world – and exposing a wide range of strategies, often creative, to subvert the impact of quota policies. Adopting gender quotas may thus be only the beginning – rather than the end – of a long and contested process to empower women as political actors.
Click here to see the report.