Women's Leadership
It’s the final day at The Campaign School at Yale (TCS), and in Room 127 at Yale Law School, students are presenting their case studies on a simulated race for attorney general in Pennsylvania. The case studies are the culmination of a week of intensive training, and a panel of veteran political advisers are judging the students’ presentations.
The judges left no element overlooked. They grilled one team on the details of their advertising plan, which included weekend radio ads in the Erie market to reach people driving to outdoor activities like fishing.
Click here to read the full article published by Yale Law School on 12 July 2023.
Marion Kamara stepped out of the black gates of her compound, high on a hill in the Devil Hole area southwest of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown.
With friends and supporters behind her, she carefully made her way down the rocky and muddy slope towards the secondary school she used to work in.
Kamara had made this journey many times before, but now she was a candidate for parliament. In her white skirt and matching peplum-style top dotted with sequins, along with bright red glasses and lipstick, she was immediately noticeable. Neighbours and wellwishers greeted her as she passed. Some asked for photographs.
Click here to read the full article published by The Irish Times on 10 July 2023.
The Provincial Assembly of Sindh, in collaboration with the Women’s Parliamentary Caucus (WPC), organised a roundtable discussion on electoral reforms in Karachi on Wednesday. The event was held with the support of UN-Women Pakistan and UNDP.
Distinguished guests, including Ms. Rehana Laghari, deputy speaker of the provincial assembly, Dr Shahida Rehmani, secretary of the Women’s Parliamentary Caucus, Ms. Mahnaz Akbar Aziz, parliamentary secretary, Ministry of Law and Justice, Dr Nafisa Shah, former secretary Caucus, and Senator Rubina Khalid, among other dignitaries, graced the occasion with their presence, said a statement.
Click here to read the full article published by The News on 6 July 2023.
Despite efforts to mobilise and encourage women to participate in politics, particularly during this year’s forthcoming election, there are concerns tat the ratio of females taking part in political processes remains low when compared to men.
Zimbabwe is set to hold its harmonsied election on August 23, and the Women’s Institute for Leadership Development (WILD) chief executive officer, Ms Samukeliso Khumalo, says it is worrying that the number of women who are participating is not equal to their male counterparts.
Click here to read the full article published by Chronicle on 6 July 2023.
At the opening ceremony, Madi Jobarteh, country director of Westminster Foundation for Democracy, extended hearty congratulation to all the mayors, chairpersons and councilors on their election.
“Your election into office comes with huge expectation from your people and a tremendous responsibility from your positions that you would serve effectively, diligently, and conscientiously to significantly change the lives of your people for the better. At Westminster Foundation for Democracy, we firmly believe that only strong democracies can deliver prosperity, guarantee human security and durable peace, and ensure people live in dignity and are free from fear and want.”
Click here to read the full article published by The Point on 6 July 2023.
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I have been at UNDP for one year as part of the African Young Women Leaders (AfYWL) Fellowship. The AfYWL is a partnership between the African Union Commission and UNDP and works to enhance women’s representation in public and private institutions. The fellowship equips young African women leaders with the skills and experience required to advance the UN’s 2030 Agenda and the African Union’s Agenda 2063, the blueprint for transforming Africa into a global powerhouse of the future. Unfortunately, this critical ambition makes little impact if the challenges to women’s political participation around the world are not addressed.
Click here to read the full article published by UNDP on 5 July 2023.
This report reflects discussions held during the May 2018 Expert Group Meeting hosted by UN Women on women’s meaningful participation in negotiating peace and the implementation of peace agreements. The meeting included some 50 experts from a diverse range of countries and contexts, including Bosnia, Colombia, Kenya, Kosovo (under UNSCR 1244), Georgia, Mozambique, Myanmar, Philippines, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
The report highlights how far the international community and Member States have come in advancing women’s meaningful participation in conflict resolution since the adoption of UN Security Council resolution 1325 (2000). The report highlights the aims and outcomes of the convening, which included:
- the exchange of current research and good practice on women’s representation and “meaningful” participation in peace processes;
- the exploration of the concept of “meaningful participation”—what it includes and how the United Nations, Member States, civil society, and other relevant actors can best effectively advocate for it and consistently operationalize it;
- discussion of the barriers to women’s meaningful participation; and
- assessment of the trends and challenges in gender-responsive provisions of peace agreements and their implementation.
The report includes a menu of actions for relevant actors and recommendations that reflect on nearly 20 years of implementation of the women, peace, and security agenda.
Click here to see the report.
Considering that equal access of men and women to power is a necessary precondition for democracies to flourish, the African women’s decade 2010-2020: Women’s participation in decision-making & leadership 2017- 2018 report focuses on women’s role in decision-making and leadership in key positions and at all levels. Nowadays, women leaders have an enormous potential to influence decision-making, by promoting fairer policies and practices in governments, parliaments, the judiciary and the private sector. Even though women play a crucial role in all the above fields, previous reports have mainly focused on women in governments and parliaments. In other words, this report goes beyond limitations and seeks a holistic approach with regard to women’s participation in all spheres of decision-making such as women MPs, women ministers, women in the judiciary, women in the private sector.
Make Every Woman Count (MEWC) has been compiling a yearly report, tracking the progress of the African Women’s Decade (AWD) since 2011. This is achieved by presenting each country on the continent with a background and a presentation of progress and developments made within different areas during each year of the African Women’s Decade 2010-2020.
Click here to see the report.
In October 2018, the highest number of gender parity cabinets was achieved. Six out of the current ten gender-balanced cabinets were formed in 2018.
In January 2014, UN Women and the Inter-parliamentary Union (IPU) reported only three countries with at least 50 percent of women ministers (Nicaragua, Sweden, and Finland). This figure went up to five countries in 2015 (Finland, Cabo Verde, Sweden, France, and Lichtenstein) and to six countries in 2017 (Bulgaria, France, Nicaragua, Sweden, Canada, and Slovenia). The recent appointment of gender-balanced cabinets in Ethiopia and Rwanda brings the list of countries with at least 50 percent of female ministers to ten.
1. Canada
In November 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave Canada an unprecedented young, ethnically diverse, and gender-balanced government team. In his July 2018 cabinet reshuffle, gender parity stayed intact with a total of 17 women and 17 men ministers.
2. Colombia
In August 2018, President Iván Duque of Colombia announced his new cabinet, which for the first time in the country’s history included as many women as men. Women head the ministries for justice, interior, labor, and mining and energy among others.
3. Costa Rica
In April 2018, President Carlos Alvarado of Costa Rica presented his cabinet, which made national history with the inclusion of 14 women and 11 men and the appointment of Epsy Campbell as the first woman to lead the country's foreign relations.
4. Ethiopia
In October 2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia appointed a cabinet marked by gender parity with ten women and ten men.
5. France
In May 2017, President Emmanuel Macron of France formed a gender-balanced government with 11 of 22 ministries led by women. In October 2018, he announced a new 34-strong cabinet with 17 women.
6. Nicaragua
In January 2017, President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua formed a cabinet with nine women and eight men. Many women ministers lead traditionally men-dominated portfolios such as defense, environment and energy and mines.*
7. Rwanda
In October 2018, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda unveiled a new gender-balanced cabinet with 13 women ministers out of a total of 26.
8. Seychelles
In April 2018, President Danny Faure of Seychelles announced a new cabinet comprised of five women and five men ministers in addition to the President and the Vice president.
9. Spain
In June 2018, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of Spain announced a new cabinet with 11 women ministers and five men. Key ministries such as justice, economy, defense and education are headed by women.
10. Sweden
Sweden has the world’s first self-proclaimed feminist government. In 2014, Stefan Löfven appointed a cabinet including 12 women and ten men ministers.
The global average for women holding ministerial positions is 18.3% (as of January 2017). See UN Women and IPU’s 2017 Map on Women in Politics for more information.
Did we miss something? Please let us know at connect@iknowpolitics.org.
* Source: Permanent Mission of Nicaragua to the United Nation in New York, 23 October 2018
This article conceptualizes an innovative understanding and measurement of women’s political leadership, theoretically justifies its application, and analyzes contemporary variation in its patterns through comparative case studies. In recent years, scholars of comparative government have studied with great interest the election of female prime ministers and presidents (e.g., Derichs and Thompson 2013; Jalalzai 2013) and cross-national variation in female members of parliaments (MPs) and cabinets (e.g., Bauer and Tremblay 2011; Paxton and Hughes 2017; Suraj, Scherpereel, and Adams 2014). Yet, when it comes to regions beyond Europe and the Americas, comparative empirical analysis of women’s political leadership (WPL) across national level governments has been largely neglected. Addressing this gap in the literature, University of Cambridge offers a new index that they believe has multiple advantages over the most commonly applied proxies for WPL.
Click here to see the academic article.
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences analyses the issue of violence against women in politics, including in parliament and elections, and outlines her conclusion and recommendations on preventing and combating such manifestations of gender-based violence.
It is submitted by the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Dubravka Šimonović, pursuant to General Assembly resolution 71/170. In section II, she provides an overview of her mandate’s initiative to develop institutional links and thematic cooperation between independent global and regional mechanisms on violence and discrimination against women. The activities carried out by the Special Rapporteur during the reporting period are included in her thematic report to the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/38/47). In section III, she analyses violence against women in politics and the main challenges to addressing it. In section IV, she outlines her conclusion and recommendations on preventing and combating violence against women in politics
Click here to see the report.
UN Women, the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR), and the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences (Special Rapporteur), in collaboration with the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), co-organized an Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on violence against women in politics (VAWP) on 8–9 March 2018 in New York. More than 40 experts attended the meeting, including Members of Parliament and local government, academics, gender equality advocates, and representatives of regional human and women’s rights monitoring mechanisms, electoral management bodies, UN agencies, and civil society organizations.
Convened at a time when gender-based violence against women (GBVAW) was in the global spotlight, the EGM provided the space for a diverse, specialized and influential group of experts to identify institutional, advocacy, and legal means to enable women to fully realize their political rights, and end impunity for those who seek to stifle or suppress them.
This report provides a summary of the EGM discussions. It contains key points and priority actions to inform partners’ interventions, particularly the Special Rapporteur’s thematic report on VAWP to the 73rd regular session of the UN General Assembly.
Click here to see the report.