Women's Leadership
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A new study shows that conservation and agricultural production can improve when women farmers widely participate in group decisions about sustainable practices.
The report, published in February in Communications Earth & Environment, highlights that agricultural production and conservation outcomes improved among a study group when gender diversity was increased.
The findings complement a growing body of research that highlights the important influence women can have in effective and efficient management of both natural resources and agricultural pursuits.
Click here to read the full article published by Premium Times on 25 May 2023.
Despite the remarkable progress of women in many professions, politics is not one of them. Indeed, around the world, women have been conspicuous by their absence in decision and policy making in government.
The real empowerment of women is achieved when they can participate at all levels in both public and private sectors.
The inclusion of women in political processes is a key element in achieving a truly inclusive democracy, and women must have the chance to exercise their political rights and participate in all political decision-making.
Click here to read the full article published by The Daily Observer on 20 May 2023.
The gender equality index in Romania in 2022 was 53.7, a score that places Romania in 26th place in the European Union, according to the European Institute for Gender Equality. The European average is 68.6, and the highest level is 77.8 in Denmark. Romania is far from the European average, and it is obvious that we still have a lot to do. Gender equality also leads to economic growth, but also to the reduction of social inequities, and this was the theme of the Inspiring Voices event.
Held at the InfoEuropa Center, the office for information, promotion, and dissemination of foreign policy objectives and European issues of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Empowering Women Leaders & Entrepreneurs was organized by Business Review in partnership with the Representation of the European Commission in Romania.
Click here to read the full article published by Business Review on 18 May 2023.
Despite the narrative that women in the north are not as ‘active’ in frontline politics as women from other regions of the country, there are many examples that dispel that notion. In three of the last four general elections, there has been at least a prominent gubernatorial bid by a woman in a northern state.
In 2011, after serving as the first northern female deputy governor, Pauline Tallen contested the Plateau state governorship election as a member of the Labour Party and finished second behind her boss, Jonah Jang. In 2015, Aisha Alhassan, popularly known as Mama Taraba, sought to get elected in Taraba and similarly finished second. However, her bid was closely followed because she was a candidate of the eventual ruling All Progressives Congress and had been declared winner by a court injunction – the first such announcement.
Click here to read the full article published by The Centre for Democracy & Development (CDD-West Africa) on 10 May 2023.
The growth in the number of female leaders has plateaued around the world, while representation in national parliaments remains static
On a recent speaking tour in Australia, Barack Obama offered up his idea on how to turn the tide on more than a decade of democratic erosion, to steer the world on to a path of sustainability and peace.
“I am actually convinced that if we could try an experiment in which every country on Earth was run by women for just two years … I am confident the world would tilt in a better direction.”
Obama’s interviewer – former Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop – replied saying female leaders would only need six months. Data, however, shows that even the far more modest goal of gender parity in global leadership remains distant.
Fewer than a third of the UN’s 193 member states have ever had a female leader*, and while the last two decades have seen a huge proportional rise in the number of women at the top of global politics, the actual numbers remain incredibly low.
Click here to read the full article published by The Guardian on 5 April 2023.
The top three countries with the happiest populations were led by women, the latest World Happiness Report has revealed.
Finland, led by Prime Mininster Sanna Marin, was crowned as the happiest population in the world. The Scandinavian country of 5.5 million has topped the world for six years, according to the standards laid out by the report, which was released earlier this week in conjunction with International Day of Happiness — a UN initiative that commenced in July 2012 to promote the global “pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal.”
Coming in second place was Denmark, whose Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has served as leader since June 2019. Third place went to yet another Scandinavian country — Iceland, whose Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir has been in the role since 2017.
Other top-ranking countries led by women include Sweden (ranked sixth) with Magdalena Andersson serving as Prime Minister from November 2021 to October 2022, New Zealand (ranked 10th) with Jacinda Ardern, who stepped down from the role earlier this year, and Lithuania (ranked 20th) with Ingrida Šimonytė, Prime Minister of Lithuania since December 2020.
Click here to read the full article published by Women’s Agenda on 21 March 2023.
Maternal mortality, defined as the death of women within 42 days of childbirth, remains a looming global health problem well into the 21st century. It is estimated to account for 830 deaths per day, and more than 216 deaths per 100,000 live births globally (Ceschia and Horton, 2016). Maternal mortality is only the tip of an iceberg, the mass of which is maternal morbidity. In sub-Saharan Africa, the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) exceeds the rate in developed countries a century ago (Alkema et al., 2016; Loudon, 1992).1 Although maternal mortality has declined rapidly in the last two decades, it was a late start, and there was massive variation in rates of decline.2 We leverage this variation to investigate the hypothesis that political will plays a significant role, and that women have greater political will for maternal mortality reduction. Since 1990, not only has MMR fallen by 44%, but the share of women in parliament has risen from under 10% to more than 20% (Figure 1a). We study whether these trends are causally related.
Click here to read the full Academic paper published by Navarra Center for International Development on 1 May 2018.
List as of 7 June 2018.
Spain joins a handful of countries where women hold at least half of ministerial portfolios.
1. Spain
The new government of Spain includes 11 women ministers and five men in addition to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. After the announcement of the cabinet on 6 June 2018, Sanchez said it is the first time since Spain returned to a democratic system in the 1970s that there are more women minsters than men. Key ministries such as those of justice, economy, defense and education went to women. See more here.
2. France
Fulfilling a campaign promise, President Emmanuel Macron named a gender-balanced cabinet in May 2017 with 11 of 22 posts taken by women. Women took on the portfolios of defense, justice and sports, among others – areas usually dominated by men. See more here.
3. Sweden
Sweden has the world’s first self-proclaimed feminist government and is the only other country, besides Spain, that has a majority of female ministers with 12 women and 11 men. See more here.
4. Canada
Qualifying it as a “cabinet that looks like Canada,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau formed in November 2015 a young and ethnically diverse cabinet with 15 women and 15 men who are mostly aged under 50. See more here.
The global average for women holding ministerial positions is 18.3% (as of January 2017). See UN Women and the Inter-parliamentary Union’s 2017 Map on Women in Politics for more information.
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The rapid expansion of electoral gender quotas in the past few decades has been met with considerable scholarly and public attention. Despite this, there has been little empirical work examining the global legislative consequences of gender quotas over time. Developing a unique time-series cross-sectional data set from 139 states during the peak period of quota adoption and implementation (1995–2012), we test whether and how quotas are associated with subsequent changes in government spending priorities. We find that substantial quota shocks—those associated with a large increase in women’s parliamentary representation—are followed by increased government expenditures toward public health. Further, we find that increases in health spending are offset by relative decreases in military spending and other spending categories. Our findings provide strong evidence that quota policies influence government priorities in historically feminized policy areas but principally when they are complied with and have substantial numerical consequences.
Click here to see the report.
One hundred years ago, on February 6 1918, the UK Parliament passed an act that granted the vote to women over the age of 30.
They had to meet certain qualifications - such as being householders, the wives of householders, occupiers of property with an annual rent of £5, or graduates of British universities - but it was a start that allowed 8.4 million women to vote, after a decades-long fight.
Later that year, Parliament passed another act that meant women could be elected to the House of Commons.
But even now, a century later, we still don't have full female representation in Parliament. Just 208 of the UK's MPs are women - under a third of the 650 who sit in the Commons.
Around the world, things aren't much better. The UK ranks 38th for female representation in each countries' respective Parliaments, according to the World Economic Forum's data for 2017.
Click here to read the full article published by The Telegraph on 5 February 2018.
The objective of this study is to generate evidence-based policy recommendations for Arab States, in order to help them scale-up efforts to meet their commitments as relates to goal 5 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), pertaining to gender equality, in particular target 5.5, which aims to ensure women’s equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political and public life.
A thorough desktop review was conducted to develop the conceptual framework for the study and establish a knowledge base on the status of women’s presence in decision-making and public life. This was supported by a survey completed by member States on the status of women’s political representation, as well as national measures to enhance it. Interviews were carried out with women who sought to participate in public life, regardless of whether they were successful or not. Case studies were conducted in four countries in the region, in order to establish an in-depth understanding of the status of women’s representation within their national political context.
This study examined women’s representation in the legislative, executive, and judiciary branches, as well as in local councils, with the understanding that the analysis was incomplete in certain cases due to data limitation. Regional analysis was conducted to showcase new forms of women’s representation, such as their participation in peace talks, national dialogues and constitutional committees, which challenge traditional roles and representations.
Click here to access the report.
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Gender equality and the political empowerment of women are key elements for the consolidation of sustainable democracies worldwide.
Global and regional organizations play an important role in the development of legal and policy frameworks, as well as in the design of effective action plans to better support the advancement of the gender equality agenda at the global, regional and national levels.
This report presents key instruments for promoting gender equality and political empowerment of women that are currently in place at the global and regional levels, highlighting the challenges, opportunities and successes that each organization has encounter in the implementation within their respective regions.
International IDEA, the Community of Democracies and UNDP present this report as an instrument to inform policymakers and relevant actors on what is the current situation of gender equality, what has been done in terms of the political empowerment of women, and what is expected from the global community in order to successfully advance Sustainable Development Goal 5 to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by 2030.
Click here to access the report.