Women's Leadership
On International Women’s Day, UNDP and UN Women launched the Gender Justice Platform to leverage their partnership on gender justice. Since 2020, UN Women and UNDP have joined together to enable access to justice for 42,000 individuals. In 14 conflict-affected contexts across Africa and the Middle East, UNDP and UN Women facilitated access to justice services and led advocacy initiatives to support women’s leadership.
The launch of the Gender Justice Platform marks the extension of the scope of the partnership.
“Through the Platform, UN Women and UNDP are officially and publicly joining our efforts, and upscaling our work to ensure that rule of law systems work for women and girls, by harnessing our expertise and global reach to advance gender equality, human rights and the rule of law”, said Åsa Regnér, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women.
Click here to read the full article published by UNDP on 8 March 2022.
As the world is set to celebrate International Women’s day, Chinese women continue to face political and socio-economic discriminations despite the communist regime’s tall claims of women empowerment. The Covid-19 pandemic has further aggravated the situation.
On March 8, the world will celebrate International Women’s Day. This year’s theme focuses on "Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow," recognizing the contributions of women and girls around the world on issues such as the climate change adaptation, mitigation, "and response to build a more sustainable future for all.
Click here to read the full article published by ANI on 7 March 2022.
On the occasion of International Women’s Day 2022, the Women in Political Participation (WPP) project invites you to the webinar Situation Analysis on Women's Political Participation in Africa: #BreakTheBias towards women in political decision making.
Click here to access the video.
Political gender equality is a central pillar of democracy, as all people, independently of gender, should have an equal say in political representation and decision-making. In practice, democracies are generally better at guaranteeing gender equality than most non-democratic regimes. According to International IDEA’s Global State of Democracy Indices, 41 per cent of democracies have high levels of gender equality, while this is the case in only two of the world’s authoritarian regimes (Belarus and Cuba). The democracies with low levels of gender equality are also exceptional (only four, all weak democracies - Iraq, Lebanon, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea). Low levels of gender equality are much more common in non-democracies – more than one third of them fall into this category.
Despite more than half the countries in the world being democracies of some form, levels of political gender equality have not kept pace with democratic progress. In 2022, only 26 per cent of legislators in the world are women, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. At the current rate, gender parity will not be achieved until 2062, according to International IDEA’s estimate. The proportion of women heads of state is even lower. In 2022, only 19 countries in the world have women in the highest office of executive power. Of these, all except four are democracies. Moreover, as global democratic progress is threatened by rising authoritarianism and democratic backsliding, fragile levels of gender equality, further weakened by the pandemic, are at risk of more setbacks, as gender is increasingly used as a weapon in such processes.
Click here to read the full article published by International IDEA on 7 March 2022.
By Ashim Steiner
The world wants an end to the tremendous human suffering in Ukraine, with millions of Ukrainians displaced by the conflict. The situation jeopardizes the safety of all Ukrainians and, as with other conflicts in other parts of the world, puts women and girls in particular at increased risk of sexual and gender-based violence, especially those who are refugees or otherwise displaced from their homes. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has joined the UN-system wide response to support those affected by the conflict, both inside Ukraine and in the neighbouring countries receiving refugees. In Ukraine, as with many other crisis and conflict contexts, from Afghanistan and the Sahel to Myanmar and Yemen -- increasing the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women in peacemaking, conflict prevention and peacebuilding efforts is crucial to find lasting solutions.
This approach also holds true when it comes to tackling climate change and environmental degradation; and boosting disaster risk reduction -- the theme of this year’s Commission on the Status of Women. Women play a crucial role in the climate and environmental sectors, and they are often leading frontline natural resource management strategies. This makes them well-placed to identify and implement effective and sustainable solutions. Yet environmental degradation and increased competition over scarce resources are exacerbating the risk of gender-based violence while women environmental human rights defenders, including indigenous women, often face threats and violence. UNDP and the University of Pittsburgh’s Global Report on Gender Equality in Public Administration shows that even though women are disproportionately impacted by the climate and environmental crises, they are still hitting a glass ceiling that stops them from advancing to the highest levels of leadership in environmental protection and climate action. Women’s participation in ministries of environmental protection averages 33% globally, for instance, and parity in decision-making on these critical issues is exceptionally rare.
Yet change is possible. UNDP’s Climate Promise is currently assisting 120 countries to enhance their climate pledges, known as National Determined Contributions (NDCs). These NDCs are important vehicles for advancing not only sustainable development but also gender equality. Globally, over 110,000 people have engaged in NDC stakeholder consultations and women are leading the process in many cases. 96% of second-generation NDCs supported under the Climate Promise include references to gender compared to 48% of first-generation NDCs. Or look to the Feminist Action for Climate Justice Action Coalition, co-led by UNDP and a consortium of partners. It aims to accelerate progress on climate justice and gender equality over the next five years. We need to build on such efforts to advance more ambitious gender-responsive environmental and climate agendas. In particular, they must take the unique needs and perspectives of women into account and actively promote women’s participation and leadership. They must also make climate and environmental finance work for women. Driving forward this change can have a ripple effect. Research shows, for instance, that countries with a high representation of women in parliament are more likely to ratify the international environment treaties that the world now needs.
Guided by the Global Goals, our new Strategic Plan 2022-2025 and our upcoming Gender Equality Strategy 2022-2025, UNDP will continue its steadfast efforts to realise #GenerationEquality. UNDP itself is changing and has now achieved a 50-50 balance in our workforce. We know that a sustainable, green, and equal future for all is simply not possible without gender equality. Informed by data and analytics provided by resources such as the COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker, countries must now put women and girls -- and their needs -- at the centre of the growing green recovery. That includes new policy measures that address women’s economic and social security including unpaid care work, the labour market, violence against women, and the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation on women and girls. This much is clear: creating a more equal world today will set the conditions for a more sustainable tomorrow.
Source: UNDP
In a region that has seen the greatest progress in political gender equality in the last two decades, Paraguay stands out, but for the wrong reasons: it has the third-lowest percentage of women in parliament in the Americas, with 17.5%, roughly half the regional average of 33.9%. When considering other elective positions, the divide widens.
Though the gender political gap is a complex and multi-dimensional issue, Paraguayan women clearly are politically underrepresented, despite their high interest and ample participation in electoral processes. For instance, in the 2021 municipal elections, female voter turnout was equal to men's, and women's participation in voting tables were even higher than men's.
Click here to read the full article published by Euronews on 8 March 2022.