Women's Leadership

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A record 12 women will take their seats as their state’s highest-ranking elected officials when the nation’s governors are sworn in this winter.

The number tops the high mark set in 2004 of nine, with The Associated Press’ calling the Arizona governor’s election for Democrat Katie Hobbs on Monday, as well as Democrat Maura Healey in Massachusetts and Republican Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Arkansas winning last week’s elections.

“This is not an incremental growth. We’re still far from political parity for women serving as chief executives. But it does feel like a breakthrough,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “It’s significant particularly because these chief executive positions have been very hard to crack. These women in many ways disrupt fundamentally who a chief executive can be.”

Click here to read the full article published by AP on 15 November 2022.

Even at 92, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, who became the first elected female president of a country in 1980, is still a consummate politician and continues to speak out for women’s rights.

Finnbogadottir made a recent appearance at the Reykjavik Global Forum, where her attendance was celebrated by the country’s prime minister, Katrin Jakobsdottir and other high-level women in politics. The former president, in an interview, discussed women in leadership, women’s rights, and the situation in Afghanistan.

Breaking Barriers

When Finnbogadottir was elected in her country’s top job, she did not only become the world’s first elected woman president, but she went on to being the world’s longest-serving one as well. She was the country’s president for 16 years, between 1980 and 1996, and many Icelandic women and girls grew up with her as a role model, encouraging others to be involved in the country’s political life.

Click here to read the full article published by Forbes on 14 November 2022.

WASHINGTON (AP) — There are two searing scenes of Nancy Pelosi confronting the violent extremism that spilled into the open late in her storied political career. In one, she’s uncharacteristically shaken in a TV interview as she recounts the brutal attack on her husband.

In the other, the House speaker rips open a package of beef jerky with her teeth during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, while on the phone with Mike Pence, firmly instructing the Republican vice president how to stay safe from the mob that came for them both. “Don’t let anybody know where you are,” she said.

That Pelosi, composed and in command at a time of chaos, tart but parochial-school proper at every turn, is the one whom lawmakers have obeyed, tangled with, respected and feared for two decades.

She is the most powerful woman in American politics and one of the nation’s most consequential legislative leaders — through times of war, financial turmoil, a pandemic and an assault on democracy.

Now, at 82, in the face of political loss and personal trauma, she decided her era was ending.

Click here to read the full article published by AP News on 18 November 2022.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand has an “even stronger” footing to speak on gender equality as lawmakers past and present celebrated Parliament becoming one of few in the world to be the majority women.

Dame Jenny Shipley, the first woman prime minister, and former prime minister Helen Clark were among the political figures to speak at an event in Parliament on Wednesday night after Labour MP Soraya Peke-Mason was last month sworn in as the 177th woman MP.

“We got here through blood, sweat and electoral reform,” Ardern said.

Click here to read the full article published by Stuff on 10 November 2022.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has developed a 10-Point Action Agenda for Advancing Gender Equality in Crisis Settings (10PAA), a roadmap to guide its development programming towards results that will help transform and advance gender equality in crisis contexts and achieve the Women, Peace and Security agenda. The 10PAA is central to UNDP’s new Crisis Offer, as well as its new Gender Equality Strategy 2022-2025. It represents a strong corporate commitment to addressing the most stubborn roots of gender inequalities.  

The 10PAA is the result of a broad consultation process that aimed at finding entry points to strengthen gender-transformational results and women’s leadership and participation in crisis contexts. It is grounded in the understanding that deep-rooted, intersectional discrimination sits at the heart of the multiple challenges humanity faces and reinforces models of dominance that exclude and leave women behind, especially in crisis settings.  

Click here to access the publication.

In December 2020, Sustineo was engaged UN Women under the Women in Leadership in Samoa (WILS) Project to lead the design and implementation of Research on Leadership Pathways of Women in Samoa.

The purpose was to better understand the barriers that hinder Samoan women’s access to leadership roles across different levels of society and to identify innovative strategies to support women’s access to leadership.

The research had four objectives:

1. To identify pathways of leadership for Samoan women.
2. To identify factors that facilitate women’s access to leadership in Samoa and factors that create barriers.
3. To identify strategies used by Samoan women leaders to gain access to leadership positions.
4. To identify innovative strategies for development partners on how to support and encourage an increase in women’s access to leadership in Samoa.

These research objectives were investigated through a mixed-method approach, drawing primarily on qualitative data.

Click here to access the report.