Women's Leadership
Distinguished Guests,
Dear friends,
It is an absolute pleasure to be here today with so many bright, passionate, young leaders and changemakers.
You are the driving force behind the progress we've made in recent years.
And what an incredible journey it has been!
As we kick off this Global Gateway High-Level Youth Event, I want to acknowledge the many partners that have been essential in driving this movement forward. Many of you are here today, in person as well as online.
But this is more than recognition.
It's a celebration of your passion and dedication.
Together, we have achieved so much.
Two years ago, with your help, the European Commission launched its first Youth Action Plan in External Action.
It was a landmark moment – the culmination of a collective effort that involved more than 220 international stakeholders, including young people and youth organisations.
Our goals were ambitious:
To engage young people by giving them a voice in policy and decision making.
To empower them with the resources they need to lead sustainable change.
Read here the full speech deliver by Commissioner Jutta Urpalainen published on the European Commission website on 10 October 2024.
Image by Commissioner Jutta Urpalainen
Adamawa State deputy governor, Professor Kaletapwa Farauta, has highlighted the growing need for female leadership to bring about significant change in Nigeria’s political landscape.
Speaking at the 28th Annual National Conference of the National Association of Women in Colleges of Education (WICE) in Yola, Farauta praised the state’s progress in empowering women in politics. She emphasised the pivotal role women can play in leadership, noting, “Nigeria is waiting for great women to make a change in the political arena.”
Farauta underlined the benefits of female leadership, particularly in terms of accountability and effective governance. She also expressed optimism about the possibility of women becoming local government chairpersons soon.
Read here the full article published by the Daily Trust on 9 October 2024.
Image by Daily Trust
In the remote yet strikingly beautiful Nguruman Escarpment of Kajiado County, Kenya, a transformative initiative is unfolding. Here, in a traditionally patriarchal Maasai community, a group of men—known as the Men Champions—has become crucial allies in the fight for gender equality in leadership. These men are part of a broader effort to challenge deep-seated cultural barriers, offering crucial support for women seeking political leadership in a county where progress has been slow.
Despite Kenya’s constitutional requirement that no more than two-thirds of elective or appointive positions be held by the same gender, Kajiado County remains a striking example of gender disparity. In the 2022 general elections, not a single woman won a political seat beyond the legally mandated women representative position, reflecting the powerful cultural and financial barriers women face when attempting to enter the political arena.
Men as Allies: Supporting Women’s Leadership in Politics
The Expanding Spaces for Women's Political Participation in Kenya project, implemented by Uraia Trust with support from UN Women and Global Affairs Canada, is actively addressing these challenges. One of the most significant elements of the program is the engagement of men in supporting women's leadership aspirations. These Men Champions—community gatekeepers and respected elders—are leading peer-learning forums that bring together male and female gender champions to discuss how to create pathways for women to participate in politics and governance.
For generations, leadership in this region has been male dominated, with powerful clans selecting political aspirants. However, as Paul Ole Koisaba, a prominent elder in Nguruman, explains, “We cannot continue to make decisions that exclude half of our population. Our women have the skills and the vision to lead, and we must stand behind them.”
By challenging the traditional norms that have held women back, these men are setting the stage for women to run for office with the full backing of their communities. In doing so, they are not just supporting women—they are building a future where leadership is more inclusive and representative of all voices.
Read here the full article published by UN Women Africa on 5 October 2024.
Claudia Sheinbaum leads a groundbreaking team of women in Mexico's government, achieving significant gender parity in leadership roles across the country.
Mexico has taken a significant step towards gender parity in leadership, marking a historic milestone with the inauguration of its first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum. As she assumes office, the country stands out as a leader in gender representation, surpassing the United States in this regard. Sheinbaum's administration features a cabinet comprised of 50% women and a Congress that is evenly split between men and women.
Claudia Sheinbaum, 62, elected on June 2 with nearly 60% of the vote, is not only the first female president but also Mexico's first Jewish president. She grew up in a politically engaged family, with her mother, Annie Pardo, being a prominent biologist. After earning a PhD in energy engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Sheinbaum became active in politics, serving as head of the environment department under then-Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador. She later won the mayorship of Mexico City in 2018.
In a recent statement, Sheinbaum asserted, "Never again should we hear the statement, 'You're prettier when you stay silent.' Those days are over in our country."
Read here the full article published by The Latin Times on 6 October 2024.
Image by The Latin Times
Women currently serve as the head of government in just 13 of the 193 member states of the United Nations. This includes Mexico, where President Claudia Sheinbaum was sworn in as the country’s first female executive this week.
Mexico is one of nine countries where the current woman head of government is the country’s first, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
Overall, 60 UN member states (31%) have ever had a woman serve as head of government. The first was Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon, where Sirimavo Bandaranaike began her first term as prime minister in 1960. Two other countries – India in 1966 and Israel in 1969 – saw their first women leaders during that decade.
Worldwide, the number of countries that have had women leaders has risen steadily since 1990. The biggest single-year increase occurred in 2010, when five countries – Australia, Costa Rica, Kyrgyzstan, Slovakia, and Trinidad and Tobago – were led by a woman for the first time.
60 countries have ever had a woman leader
Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, is the longest serving woman currently in office. Mottley has been in power for more than six years.
The title of longest-serving woman head of government in modern history is held by former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Hasina spent more than 20 total years in power but resigned and fled Bangladesh earlier this year, when mass protests against a quota system for government jobs turned into a more violent movement against her government. (She was also the oldest woman leader, according to a separate Pew Research Center analysis.)
Read here the full article published by the Pew Research Center on 3 October 2024.
Image credits: Pew Research Center
The passing of the presidential sash every six years is always an important and symbolic occasion in Mexico.
But on Tuesday, when it was placed over the shoulder of Claudia Sheinbaum - the first woman to hold the highest office in the country - it was truly an historic watershed moment in more than 200 years of modern Mexican history.
It has been a long road which led the first female mayor of Mexico City to break the glass ceiling in Mexican politics again, this time at national level.
To huge cheers of “Presidenta!” ringing out both inside and outside the congressional chamber, she raised her fist in victory, savouring the moment.
She began her first speech as president by thanking her political mentor and predecessor in the top job, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, calling him “the most important political leader and social warrior in Mexico’s modern history".
He leaves office, she said, with “the greatest love of his people".
On that point, she is not wrong. López Obrador is deeply beloved by his supporters and his popularity ratings in his final days in office were higher than those of any other president in Mexican history.
Read here the full article published by the BBC on 2 October 2024.
Image credits: BBC
The Reykjavik Index for Leadership measures how people feel about women in leadership. It measures the perceived legitimacy of male and female leadership in politics and across twenty professions, as well as a measure of how men and women differ in their views, and the extent to which men and women are viewed equally in terms of suitability of individuals for positions of power.
The Index evaluates the G7 groups of nations, surveying the attitudes of more than 10,000 people.
Click here to see the report.
Recent years have witnessed a troubling rise in reports of assault, intimidation, and abuse directed at politically active women. The United Nations General Assembly first called for zero tolerance for violence against female candidates and elected officials in Resolution 66/130 in 2011. In 2012, Bolivia became the first country in the world to criminalize political violence and harassment against women, in response to a more than decade-long campaign by locally elected women to document the numerous injuries and abuses they confronted. Resonating across the region, this development led the states parties to the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women to endorse a Declaration on Political Violence and Harassment against Women in 2015.
Click here to see the academic article.
Latin America has been at the vanguard in implementing diverse strategies to combat violence against women in politics (VAWIP). In 2012, Bolivia became the first country to criminalize “political violence and harassment against women” with Law 243. Soon, Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rica, and Mexico followed with similar proposals (Krook and Restrepo Sanín 2016). Despite high levels of criminal impunity (Piscopo 2016), legislative measures have been the preferred strategy to combat VAWIP within the region. The Inter-American Commission on Women (CIM) recently published a model law, drawing on experiences in Bolivia, to serve as inspiration for other legislative measures in the region. What can these legislative definitions tell us about the phenomenon of VAWIP, its limits, and its challenges?
Click here to see the academic article.
Violence against women in politics (VAWP) is a human rights violation, as it prevents the realization of political rights. Violence against women in political and public life can be understood as “any act or threat of gender-based violence, resulting in physical, sexual, psychological harm or suffering to women, that prevents them from exercising and realizing their political rights, whether in public or private spaces, including the right to vote and hold public office, to vote in secret and to freely campaign, to associate and assemble, and to enjoy freedom of opinion and expression” (UN Women/UNDP 2017, 20).
Although awareness of the gravity and increasing levels of VAWP is growing, the issue is a relatively new area of investigation, with no global statistics or measurements available on prevalence or incidence, a lack of commonly agreed definitions and indicators, a reliance on anecdotal evidence, and underreporting because of the stigma attached to genderbased violence in many societies. The absence of commonly agreed definitions and methodologies for measuring VAWP is a barrier to the advancement of research, monitoring, and policy and programming responses in this field. Are agreed indicators and methodologies for measuring VAWP necessary? How can consistency across different measurement approaches be ensured? This essay examines the extent to which VAWP is measured, identifying gaps in current violence against women (VAW) measurements and considering new opportunities for measuring and monitoring VAWP.
Click here to see the academic article.
Four years ago, Latin America was home to a third of the world’s female presidents. Today, it has none. But that doesn’t mean the region hasn’t made progress in advancing women’s role in the political sphere. In fact, as of the inauguration of Colombia’s new administration on August 7, there are more female vice presidents—in 12 different countries—in the hemisphere than ever before.
Latin America is also moving ahead when it comes to balancing the male-to-female ratio in legislative branches. The Inter-Parliamentary Union’s last update on June 1, registered that 28.9 percent of all congressional seats in the region were occupied by women, an increase of 3.7 percent since January 2014, and 5.1 percent above today’s global average. When Mexico’s new Congress is inaugurated on September 1, Latin America will be home to three of the four countries with the greatest proportion of congresswomen.
Click here to see the full Infographic.
Two years after Hillary Clinton became the first woman to win the presidential nomination of a major U.S. political party, and with a record number of women running for Congress in 2018, a majority of Americans say they would like to see more women in top leadership positions – not only in politics, but also in the corporate world – according to a new Pew Research Center survey. But most say men still have an easier path to the top and that women have to do more to prove their worth. And the public is skeptical that the country will ever achieve gender parity in politics or in business.
Republicans and Democrats have widely different views about where things stand today and what factors are holding women back. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are more than twice as likely as Republicans and those who lean Republican to say there are too few women in high political offices (79% vs. 33%). And while 64% of Democrats say gender discrimination is a major reason why women are underrepresented in these positions, only 30% of Republicans agree.
There are also wide gender gaps in views about women in leadership. About seven-in-ten women say there are too few women in high political offices and in top executive business positions; about half of men say the same.
Click here to see the report.