Women's Leadership
Góðan daginn from Iceland, where the threat of an imminent volcanic eruption did not deter 500 women leaders from flying to the country for the Reykjavik Global Forum, an annual gathering of women politicians, activists and business leaders.
Iceland is a fitting place to host the forum, which is sponsored by Iceland’s government and Parliament in partnership with Women Political Leaders, a global network of female politicians. After all, it is the world’s most gender-equal country — and has been for 14 years in a row.
Click here to read the full article published by Politico on 17 November 2023.
Image by Politico
There is a pervasive narrative “that women are running for office in record numbers,” says Erin Loos Cutraro. “People hold onto that. They think it’s still true today.”
Except it’s not.
As the founder and CEO of political engagement nonprofit She Should Run, she should know. Loos Cutraro’s organization recently published a study, “The State of Women,” finding that 2018’s much-publicized “Year of the Woman” – when a record-breaking 103 women were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives – was an anomaly. “We haven’t seen that type of momentum for women’s representation since,” Loos Cutraro stated in a release of the study’s findings.
Click here to read the full article published by The Story Exchange on 14 November 2023.
Image by The Story Exchange
ElectHER, a civil society organisation (CSO), says without women in politics, Nigeria is limiting the extent to which it can develop.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday on the forthcoming off-cycle elections, Ibijoke Faborode, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of ElectHER, said there is a need for “improved consideration” for women’s participation in politics and governance.
Click here to read the full article published by The Cable on 7 November 2023.
A lack of gender diversity among decisionmakers in the UK prime minister’s office meant that women were not adequately considered in pandemic-related policymaking, likely leading to preventable deaths, a former top official has told the Covid-19 inquiry.
Helen MacNamara was deputy cabinet secretary – one of the UK’s most senior officials – between 2020 and 2021. In a written statement submitted to the independent public inquiry into the UK government’s response to the pandemic she said the “exclusion of a female perspective led to significant negative consequences”, noting lack of thought for domestic abuse victims, pregnant women and around childcare in the context of school closures.
Click here to read the full article published by the Global Gov Forum on 2 November 2023.
At a time when women around the world are lauded for their ever-growing achievements as peacemakers, the Arab region is marred by armed conflicts causing an increasing number of victims, particularly among women and children. As part of its mission to empower women and achieve sustainable development in the region, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) provided a platform for women leaders and pioneers to share their opinions on the role of women in achieving peace in times of conflict, in the context of the ongoing situation in Palestine.
Click here to read the full article published by Relief Web on 30 October 2023.
To what extent has the glass ceiling in global governance been shattered? To answer this question, we need to look beyond the numbers on women’s representation and study how far women are perceived as inspiring and visionary leaders in global governance. This article offers an analysis of perceptions of inspiring and visionary leadership in global multistakeholder initiatives from a gender perspective. Based on 467 interviews with participants in a leading multistakeholder initiative, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), it presents four findings: (1) respondents identify more men than women as inspiring and visionary leaders, with the difference roughly corresponding to the share of women in leadership roles; (2) respondents tend to ascribe more leadership attributes to women than to men when explaining why they find them inspiring and visionary; (3) both feminine and masculine leadership traits are appreciated in relation to both men and women leaders at ICANN; (4) female respondents identify more women as inspiring and visionary leaders than male respondents. These findings contribute novel insights into gendered perceptions around leadership and the importance of role models in global governance. They also shed much-needed light on the demands and expectations from leadership in global multistakeholder arrangements.
Click here to read the full report published by the Cambridge University Press on 26 October 2023.