Women's Leadership

Violence against women in all its forms is perceived by the OSCE as one of the most pervasive impediments to women’s full, equal and effective participation in political and public life and as a threat to human security. Yet, it is prevalent across the OSCE region, and it is especially, but not exclusively, affecting young, disabled, ethnic minority women. Women are targeted with violence not only for their political views but also to prevent current and aspiring women politicians from engaging in politics and decision-making altogether. Violence is not a price women should have to pay in order to enjoy their political and civil rights. In addition to individual suffering and violation of women’s rights, this violence weakens democratic governance, political pluralism and the inclusivity of public institutions. This toolkit provides recommendations for legislators, governments, parliaments and political parties as well as guidance for civil society and women politicians affected by violence. It consolidates existing definitions and compiles examples of promising practices on preventing violence against women in politics from a variety of States. The toolkit is based upon international standards and OSCE commitments.

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INEC urges political parties to respect their constitutions

The United Nations (UN) has scored Nigeria low in the area of women participation in politics.

The UN Women Representative to Nigeria and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Ms. Beatrice Eyong, who spoke yesterday in Abuja, at a one-day meeting of, “He for She” (a term for men who are supporting gender equality), organised by the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), said in terms of women participation and representation in Africa, Nigeria was the least.

Click here to read the full article published by This Day on 30 November 2022.

Trust in women leaders is falling even as their numbers in high-ranking positions are rising. Why?

More women than ever before are running the world’s biggest companies, but research shows that the rise in representation has been accompanied by a fall in trust in female leaders. It paints a grim picture for those who manage to break through the metaphorical glass ceiling.

In November, new data from The Reykjavik Index for Leadership, an annual survey that compares how men and women are viewed in terms of their suitability for positions of power, showed trust in women leaders has fallen markedly throughout the past year. It’s the first decline in this measure since Kantar Public, an evidence and advisory public-policy business, started collecting data in 2018.

Click here to read the full article published by BBC on 30 November 2022.

A question asked to New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, to justify why she was meeting with Finland’s leader, Sanna Marin sparked debate around the world on Wednesday. The reporter asked, “[is it] just because you're similar in age and, you know, got a lot of common stuff?”

Ardern, 42, responded with a rhetorical statement, wondering “whether or not anyone ever asked Barack Obama and [former New Zealand Prime Minister] John Key if they met because they were of similar age.” Marin, who is 37, addressed the question simply by saying, “we’re meeting because we are both prime ministers.”

Click here to read the full article published by Forbes on 30 November 2022.

Finland’s PM says she met Ardern in New Zealand because they are both ‘prime ministers’ after journalist asks whether it was due to similar age and gender.

The prime ministers of Finland and New Zealand have taken a swipe at suggestions their first face-to-face meeting in New Zealand happened because they are both young female leaders.

“We’re meeting because we are prime ministers,” Finland’s Sanna Marin said at a joint press conference at Auckland’s Government House on Wednesday morning, after a journalist suggested some people may have thought they were meeting because they share a similar demographic.

Click here to read the full article published by The Guardian on 30 November 2022.

This paper proposes replacing the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Gender Inequality Index with two new gender indexes: the Global Gender Parity Index (GGPI) and the Women’s Empowerment Index (WEI).

The proposal builds on a review of concepts of gender equality in the capability approach that underpins UNDP’s human development paradigm and the international policy frameworks of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Beijing Platform for Action, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It also implements current proposals for reform, which emphasize measuring gender inequality in capabilities (rather than institutional inputs or resources that enable or constrain these capabilities) and measuring gaps in achievements between women and men and the level of women’s potential for empowerment by different indexes.

Evaluating the options for measurement, the paper identifies several Sustainable Development Goal indicators and novel data as potentially useful in translating the selected capabilities into new indexes. The first index, the GGPI, is a relative measure of well-being, which encompasses the dimensions of health, education, decent standard of living and decision-making. The second, the WEI, focuses solely on women and measures freedom from early motherhood, reproductive choice, and freedom from intimate partner violence as well as women’s capabilities to seek education, pursue science, technology, engineering, and math degrees, have voice in national and local governing bodies, and hold economic leadership positions.

Click here to access the report.