Women's Leadership
With generous support from the Government of Norway, UN Women will intensify its efforts to advance the Women, Peace and Security agenda in Libya at this critical juncture.
The Government of Norway has contributed USD 570,000 to UN Women Libya to promote the implementation of United Nations Security Council resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on women, peace and security and support Libyan women’s participation in peacebuilding and recovery efforts.
“We are very excited and proud to be part of the ongoing political process in Libya through our engagement with UN Women Libya. Women’s participation in political decision-making at the highest levels, and at crucial crossroads in a country’s history is key to create necessary conditions for inclusive and sustainable peace.” Said Ms. Natasha Lind, Ambassador to Egypt and Libya at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Cairo. “We highlight again the importance of supporting the 17 women in the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum and are hoping for a positive outcome of this important process that will also benefit women’s inclusion in political life in Libya in the longer term.”
The ongoing challenges to Libya’s political and security context impact the lives of all Libyans, particularly women and girls who have borne the brunt of the civil war. As a result of these volatile dynamics, Libya continues to be a priority country for the United Nations Security Council and Human Rights Council. Libyan women have been deeply affected by the conflict and related gender-based discrimination that limits their enjoyment of their fundamental economic, political and social rights.
In order to reach a sustainable peace, it is critical to adopt a gender-sensitive and inclusive approach to the peace and political processes currently underway. Furthermore, ensuring that women are able to participate fully in the electoral process at all levels is key to a stable post-conflict Libya that protects the rights of all women and men.
“Norway has been one of UN Women’s long-standing partners in advancing women’s rights and gender equality in Libya and beyond.” Said Ms. Begoña Lasagabaster, UN Women Representative in Libya. “With this generous support, we will intensify our efforts to leverage the vast expertise of Libyan women and gender equality advocates across the country to promote the participation of women in Libya’s political life and peacebuilding efforts.”
This contribution from the Government of Norway is part of a longstanding partnership in the Framework Agreement in the Field of Development Cooperation between the Government of Norway and UN Women.
For more information, please contact Samer Abu Rass: samer.abu-rass@unwomen.org
Source: UN Women
The year 2020 will be remembered as one of the most consequential in generations: the COVID-19 pandemic devastated lives and livelihoods; millions protested across the country for racial justice following the murder of George Floyd; and the U.S. presidential election gripped the body politic for months.
But 2020 was also the centennial of one of the most important civic events in American history—the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited denying the right to vote “on account of sex.” After 70 years of organizing and struggle by generations of women, the amendment’s ratification in August 1920 paved the way for millions of women to participate more fully in national elections and in the economic life of the nation. Although imperfectly implemented due to racism, sexism, and other factors, the expansion of the franchise opened new possibilities for women in their roles in the economy and society, and represented a victory in the long march toward gender equality.
To celebrate this milestone, but also to analyze the forces that have kept the United States from reaching true equality, the Brookings Institution launched “19A: The Brookings Gender Equality Series,” a collection of 19 essays by Brookings scholars and other subject-matter experts that analyze how gender equality has evolved since the amendment’s passage and explore policy recommendations to end gender-based discrimination. Visit brookings.edu/19A to find links to individual essays.
Click here to read the full article published by Brookings on 6 January 2021 and to earn more about the essays and the themes they explore.
Feminists in war-devastated Yemen have condemned the exclusion of women from a new government formed under a power-sharing deal between the internationally-recognized government and separatists.
The 24-strong government announced late Friday includes members of the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) as part of a Saudi-brokered bid to end a power struggle between the sides.
The deal was signed in the Saudi capital Riyadh in November of last year.
The new government is the first without female members in 20 years, the Yemeni Women Movement, a grouping of pro-women alliances in the country, said.
"This is unfair discrimination against women's right to political participation," the group said in a statement.
"While we appreciate the formation of the government as a fruit of consensus among Yemeni political powers in the Riyadh agreement, we denounce women's exclusion from the government," it added.
Click here to read the full article published by the Daily Sabah on 19 December 2020.
Central and Southeast Europe now accounts for a third of the tiny number of states worldwide that have gender-balanced cabinets — but higher female representation in politics doesn’t necessarily equate to women holding real power.
Two more Central and Southeast Europe countries are now among around nine worldwide that have gender-balanced cabinets after the appointments of new governments headed by Ana Brnabic in Serbia and Ingrid Simonyte in Lithuania, where approximately half of the ministers are women. This follows the appointment of a gender-balanced cabinet in Albania two years earlier.
The appointments by Brnabic and Simonyte come after a slump in female participation in politics in the early transition years that has since been gradually reversed in most of the post-socialist space. However, both under socialism and in the decades since then female representation in politics has not necessarily equated to women holding real power.
Having more women in power can help improve the quality of government by promoting bipartisanship, equality and stability, according to a report from think tank the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), published alongside its latest Women’s Power index. This comes on top of the way female politicians can encourage gender equality by promoting it directly, as well as through policies that help women to play a full role in public life in areas such as health, education and childcare.
The CFR report cites a study on the US senate that shows women are more likely to cross party lines to find common ground, reducing costly political deadlocks. Women’s inclusion also increases stability, says the CFR, referencing another study showing that when women’s representation in parliament increases by just 5%, the country is almost five times less likely to respond to an international crisis with violence.
There have, however, been questions raised as to “whether gender equality is promoted substantially or only symbolically,” Dr Lilijana Cickaric, principal research fellow and head of the Center for Sociology and Anthropology Research at the Institute of Social Sciences in Belgrade, told bne IntelliNews, commenting on the situation in Serbia.
Click here to read the full article published by Intellinews on 28 December 2020.
Summary: There has been a lot said about how women have done a better job leading during the Covid-19 crisis than men. According to an analysis of 360-degree assessments conducted between March and June of this year, women were rated by those who work with them as more effective. The gap between men and women in the pandemic is even larger than previously measured, possibly indicating that women tend to perform better in a crisis. In fact, women were rated more positively on 13 of the 19 competencies that comprise overall leadership effectiveness in the authors’ assessment.
When discussing the careers of women leaders, there’s a phenomenon referred to as the “glass cliff.” It’s an obvious relative to the term glass ceiling, which describes the invisible barrier to advancement that women often face when they are up for promotion to the highest levels of an organization. The “glass cliff” describes the idea that when a company is in trouble, a female leader is put in charge to save it. When women are finally given a chance to prove themselves in a senior position, they are handed something that is already broken and where the chances of failure are high.
We see this happen frequently enough that it made us wonder, are women in fact more qualified to lead during a crisis? Could that be why they are handed the reins when times are tough?
Click here to read the full article published by the Harvard Business Review on 30 December 2020.
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan -- A prominent group of women leaders representing the Central Asian states and the United Nations launched a new platform, the Central Asian Women Leaders’ Caucus, today to support women in the region to attain a more prominent political, economic and social role and enable them to increasingly influence the decision-making process on issues related to peace, stability and sustainable development in the region.
The launch took place at the Dialogue of Women Leaders from Central Asian states, which is organized by the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA) and the UNDP Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States and was held online this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of UNRCCA, Natalia Gherman in partnership with UNDP Assistant Administrator and Regional Director for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Mirjana Spoljaric Egger convened the meeting with Tanzila Narbaeva, Speaker of the Parliament of Uzbekistan; Gulshat Mammedova, Speaker of the Parliament of Turkmenistan; Gulmira Isimbayeva, Deputy Speaker of the Parliament of Kazakhstan; Elvira Surabaldieva, Deputy Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan and Hilolby Kurbonzoda, Head of the Tajik Government Committee on Women and Family.
Click here to read the full article published by the UNRCCA on 23 December 2020.