Women's Leadership

UAE, in conjunction with Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, GIWPS, has launched a research report and a UN action plan to advance women’s participation in post-conflict reconstruction, following a year-long series of high-level panel discussions on the subject, UAE's state-run news agency Wam reported.

Reiterating the need for women participation in post-conflict reconstruction, former US Secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, said: "It’s a crucial moment to ensure women’s participation at every stage of relief and recovery, post-conflict. For too long, the role of women in post-conflict reconstruction has been an understudied aspect of efforts to advance peace and security. That is finally beginning to change."

For her part, ambassador and permanent representative of the UAE to the UN, Lana Nusseibeh, stated, "We must jointly redouble our efforts in enhancing women’s inclusion in post-conflict settings by creating action plans that are achievable, implementable, and measurable so that we can create more peaceful and stable societies all over the world that people deserve."

Click here to read the full article published by Construction Week on 26 November 2020.

The Gender Centre for Empowering Development (GenCED) on Tuesday December 1, 2020 launched a research report on “Violence Against Women Within Political Parties”.

The research, which covered the operations, structures, and processes of the major political parties in Ghana (NDC, NPP, CPP, PNC, PPP) made some revelations about issues that hamper women’s full political processes and governance in Ghana.

Click here to read the full article published by My Joy Online on 2 December 2020.

I got a very short, provocative email the other day from a former Ontario finance minister, whose privacy I will protect here, since it was a personal note that he sent. He was responding to a piece I’d just written about what it’ll take to get more women into politics. His note simply said: “Why?”

I inferred from this that he wanted to know why we needed more women in politics. What possible difference could it make? Isn’t it more important to have the “best people” in public life, regardless of gender?

All great questions. Fortunately (and coincidentally), I had just watched a Zoom conversation, organized by Ryerson University’s Democracy Forum, featuring two of the most trailblazing women ever to serve in politics in Canada. So, to that former finance minister who emailed me, here comes your answer.

Click here to read the full article published by TVO on 2 December 2020.

Domestic extremists planned to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in October. State and local public health officers have received harassing messages and death threats, to the point where some required bodyguards. COVID-19 has inflamed partisan passions—but there’s another dimension to these attacks: Many officials targeted are women.

Abusing women leaders did not start with the pandemic. It’s a longstanding phenomenon recognized by researchers and policymakers. From the hateful language tweeted at the four congresswomen known as “The Squad”—Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Talib—to the 18 British women who left Parliament because of rape and death threats, violence against women politicians is everywhere.

Click here to read the full article published by Ms Magazine on 2 December 2020.

In 2017, soon after then Ukrainian member of parliament Svitlana Zalishchuk gave a speech to the United Nations on the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict on women, a fake tweet began to circulate on social media claiming that she had promised to run naked through the streets of Kiev if Russia-backed separatists won a critical battle. Zalishchuk said, “The story kept circulating on the Internet for a year,” casting a shadow over her political accomplishments.

Zalishchuk is not alone in her experience. Around the world, women in politics receive an overwhelming amount of online abuse, harassment, and gendered defamation via social media platforms. For example, a recent analysis of the 2020 U.S. congressional races found that female candidates were significantly more likely to receive online abuse than their male counterparts. On Facebook, female Democrats running for office received ten times more abusive comments than male Democratic candidates. Similar trends have been documented in India, the UK, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe

Click here to read the full article published by CNN on 6 November 2020.

Tool by Make Every Woman Count that monitors elections in Africa.

See it here.