Women's Leadership

Tunisia has seen a marked shift in attitudes towards women political leaders since Najla Bouden became the first female prime minister in the Arab world. However, this doesn't mean that life has dramatically improved for Tunisia's women, writes BBC News Arabic's Jessie Williams.

Bochra Belhaj Hmida has spent her whole life fighting for both gender equality and democracy in Tunisia - "one of which cannot be achieved without the other," she says.

After the revolution in 2011 - which saw her take part in the mass demonstrations that led to autocrat President Ben Ali being ousted - Tunisia passed a gender parity law. It requires political parties to have an equal number of men and women on their list of candidates to serve in parliament after elections.

It was around this time that Ms Belhaj Hmida joined a political party, Nidaa Tounes.

But being a woman in politics in Tunisia - and a woman fighting for equal rights - is not easy.

Click here to read the full article published by BBC on 12 July 2022.

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"The next step is to move away from symbolic representation for women to have more female politicians in influential decision-making positions," writes Saad Hafiz.

Developing countries are increasingly recognising that including women as equal partners in political, economic, and public life is crucial to nation-building. Pakistan has a long way to go as women are under-represented in decision-making positions. Political power remains firmly the domain of men, except for a few elite women with dynastic political backgrounds.

Low political representation, together with entrenched religious and cultural patriarchy and rampant sexism, is the primary cause of the dismal conditions for women in the country. The personal and political emancipation of women is not a national priority. And the uneven distribution of political power, heavily skewed towards men, limits women’s contribution to nation-building. It also leaves women alone to struggle for gender-sensitive legislation and fairer laws and practices.

Click here to read the full article published by The Friday Times on 6 July 2022.

Until the war in Tigray started in November 2020, Ethiopia was a favoured investment destination. It had experienced strong economic growth for the previous decade.

The country gave foreign investors preferential access to American and European markets, favourable customs and tax policies, and relative political stability. Labour costs were also low – around half of what they were in China.

The Ethiopian government had invested US$1 billion annually in industrial parks since 2010 – almost one-third of its total net foreign aid.

Investors from across the world, including China, India, the US and South Korea, started industrial production in these parks, creating job opportunities for thousands of citizens.

Click here to read the full article published by The Conversation on 11 July 2022.

In 2021, the world’s political leaders, youth activists, corporate executives, development agencies, gathered in Paris for the Generation Equality Forum to lay the foundation for a new agenda to address gender equality. Following the Forum, as a co-leader of the Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership, Malawi made commitments to promote feminist movements building and women’s leadership at all levels. In moving towards the implementation and realization of Generation Equality commitments, Malawi launched the first Intergenerational Dialogue on Generation Equality and Women’s Leadership on 9 April 2022.

Over 3,000 diverse actors convened in Lilongwe under the theme of, ‘Growing and Glowing as a leader against all odds’. Reflection on the Generation Equality commitments and women leadership in Africa was at the heart of the conference which brought together governments, civil society, young people, corporations, allies and change-makers from all over Africa.

Click here to read the full article published by UN Women on 29 June 2022.

Despite some small advances and changes in legislation, both chavismo and the opposition make things more difficult for female politicians. But Venezuela could take some steps towards equality.

The level of women’s participation in Venezuelan politics is discouraging. Although the recent political conflict, electoral distrust, the prolonged economic, humanitarian and migration crises limit women’s participation in politics, they don’t tell the whole story on women’s exclusion from Venezuelan politics. 

In reality, internal political structures and leadership roles remain dominated by men, especially within Venezuela’s most relevant political parties and institutions. Of the fifteen permanent commissions in the 2015 National Assembly—the only de jure legislature in Venezuela led by the caretaker government presided by Juan Guaidó—only two are led by women. Women are excluded from decision-making in high-profile policy areas like energy and the economy. 

Click here to read the full article published by Caracas Chronicle on 16 June 2022.

Women around the world are facing unprecedented levels of targeted political violence. This is also true in West Africa. Women can be targeted in a myriad of ways, by an array of types of perpetrators, during and outside of periods of conflict and contentious crises. The result though is consistent: such targeted violence has worrying implications for women’s political participation as well as their involvement in the public sphere. Political violence targeting women (PVTW) in West Africa has become increasingly common, with this trend increasing even more dramatically in recent years. The threat and risks, however, have not been uniform: different types of violence and different primary perpetrators dominate the gendered violence landscape across countries. Using data from ACLED, this paper tracks how women are targeted, and who is targeting women. Only by understanding how threats and risks that women face differ across countries can strategies be created to protect women.

Click here to access the report.