Women's Leadership
From wanting to become a surgeon, like the protagonists of her favourite TV series Grey’s Anatomy, to combating violent extremism by improving political participation of women and the youth, Hajer Sharief has come a long way. She was a 19-year-old medical student in Tripoli, the capital of Libya, when the hospital nearby ran out of staff to manage casualties of the ongoing civil war. She worked at the hospital for over a month, and at the end of it, was clear about one thing: Revolution and change is all good, but people first need to actively participate in building the democratic system they wish for. She co-founded Together We Build It, an organisation working for human rights, gender equality and political participation, especially of the youth.
Sharief, 27, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize alongside Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali [who won] and Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg last year. She was in Mumbai recently as a speaker at TEDxGateway, and in an interview with Forbes India, spoke about the resurgence of politics in educational campuses across India, the need for more women in electoral decision-making, and why people need to speak up against religious extremism and exclusion. Edited excerpts:
Q. There is a re-politicisation of students and educational campuses across India. What can the youth teach their elders about politics?
Previous generations did not have many direct mechanisms to influence political systems or decision-makers. Sometimes, this led to revolutions where the established political order was overthrown.
The context has changed now. Social media, for example, has a tremendous impact on politicians and the establishment. Until recently, young people were not interested in voting or in understanding what was going on. But now, they are finding their voice, conveying their opinions collectively and putting pressure on politicians to sit up and take notice.
Click here to read the full interview published by Forbes India on 16 March 2020.
Women’s full and equal participation in all facets of society is a fundamental human right. Yet, around the world, from politics to entertainment to the workplace, women and girls are largely underrepresented.
The visualizations below take a closer look at this gender-imbalanced picture over time, revealing just how slow progress is. Rooted in patriarchal norms and traditions, the consequences are far-reaching with detrimental, negative consequences on the personal, economic and future well-being of women and girls, their families and the community at large.
Building a sustainable future for all, means leaving no one behind. Women and girls are critical to finding solutions to the biggest challenges we face today and must be heard, valued and celebrated throughout society to reflect their perspectives and choices for their future and that of the advancement of humanity.
How many more generations are needed for women and girls to realize their rights? Join Generation Equality to demand equal rights and opportunities for all. Share this piece today using #GenerationEquality, #IWD2020 and #CSW64.
Click here to see the visualizations.
Teres Lindberg is a Member of Parliament from Sweden.
This interview was conducted in October 2019 in the margins of the the 141st Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Belgrad.
The infographics are produced by the Central Electoral Commission of Moldova, with the support of “Enhancing democracy in Moldova through inclusive and transparent elections” Project, implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP Moldova) with the financial support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the British Embassy in Chisinau through the Good Governance Fund and the Embassy of Netherlands through the Matra Program.
Click here to see the infographics.
Eri Tokunaga is a Member of Parliament from Japan.
This interview was conducted in October 2018 in the margins of IPU’s 139th Assembly in Geneva.
For over a decade, Nancy Pelosi has been highly regarded as a trailblazer and change maker in Washington. As former Speaker of the House of Representatives—the first woman in American history to reach that milestone—and now as the Democratic Leader of the House, she succeeded in breaking what she calls the “marble ceiling,” helping pave the way for more women to enter into the political arena. Getting more women in politics is something Pelosi has long been a strong advocate for since women, and especially women of color, are still so far from having equal political representation. After the midterm elections in which a record number of women ran for office, women currently make up only 23.5 percent of Congress, only 9 out of 50 governors are women, and the U.S. lags behind 75 other countries in terms of women’s political representation.
I had the honor of interviewing Leader Pelosi at What Will It Take’s Women’s Political Leadership event in New York, where I had the opportunity to ask her to share some of her personal insights about her experience as a prominent female leader in Washington, why she feels it’s so essential to have more women in politics, and what her call to action is for all women. Here are five important takeaways from my powerful conversation with Leader Pelosi.
Click here to read the interview.
VVEngage is a Vital Voices signature fellowship supporting outstanding women political leaders making and influencing policy across the globe. Through this fully-funded fellowship, we aim to increase the capacity, decision-making power and effectiveness of women leaders in politics and government, shifting culture around women’s public leadership and moving towards equality in public representation globally. We also aim to work towards a more inclusive and equitable world by advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through policy.
Through this fellowship, Vital Voices advances women’s political leadership and the SDGs by conducting online and in-person* trainings with experts such as women leaders from the Vital Voices Global Network and professors from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. The fellowship also connects participants to a global network of peers and mentors, such as current and former female heads of state with the Council of Women World Leaders, with whom they can brainstorm and share challenges and best practices.
Click here to learn more and to access application details.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has developed a 10-Point Action Agenda for Advancing Gender Equality in Crisis Settings (10PAA), a roadmap to guide its development programming towards results that will help transform and advance gender equality in crisis contexts and achieve the Women, Peace and Security agenda. The 10PAA is central to UNDP’s new Crisis Offer, as well as its new Gender Equality Strategy 2022-2025. It represents a strong corporate commitment to addressing the most stubborn roots of gender inequalities.
The 10PAA is the result of a broad consultation process that aimed at finding entry points to strengthen gender-transformational results and women’s leadership and participation in crisis contexts. It is grounded in the understanding that deep-rooted, intersectional discrimination sits at the heart of the multiple challenges humanity faces and reinforces models of dominance that exclude and leave women behind, especially in crisis settings.
Click here to access the publication.
Online violence against women in politics (OVAW-P) poses a deepening challenge to democracy, serving as a key tool of illiberalism and democratic backsliding across the globe. OVAW-P encompasses all forms of aggression, coercion, and intimidation seeking to exclude women from politics simply because they are women. This online behavior seeks to achieve political outcomes: targeting individual women to harm them or drive them out of public life, while also sending a message that women in general should not be involved in politics. This online violence has a chilling effect on the political ambitions and engagement of women and girls, decreasing their presence and agency in politics and public life. Stopping gender-based attacks online is a solvable problem, and it is the fastest and clearest investment toward building an internet that enables everyone to be politically engaged.
This report includes a list of interventions that technology platforms, governments, civil society organizations, and the media can take to make meaningful progress towards ending online violence against women in politics.
Click here to access the report.
The Women in Government Fellowship is a six-month program that is focused on capacity-building, training, and mentorship of women in politics. It seeks to enhance and improve the quality of political participation of women.
The fellows will undergo in-person workshops, intensive virtual learning sessions, and hands-on mentorship by seasoned women politicians. This three-pronged approach will provide an academic grounding of democratic frameworks and policy-making, up-skill them with practical know-hows of electioneering, build the fellows' personal brands through personalised Public Narrative trainings by coaches from Harvard Kennedy School, and learn the ropes of politicking directly from a mentor who is undergoing the realities and tackling the challenges of being a woman in public office.
Application deadline: 30th November 2022
Shortlisted applicants' interviews: 5-15th December 2022
Selected Fellows list: 21st December 2022
Click here to learn more.
A compendium of ideas to reach gender parity in municipal politics
How can we begin to overcome the countless obstacles that are preventing women from fully participating in municipal politics?
The suggestions in this Inventory were compiled following consultations we carried out across Canada, as part of FCM’s Toward Parity Project.
These actions are not official FCM recommendations. They are potential strategies that need to be assessed to determine whether they can be adapted to fit local realities and opportunities.
Click here to access the guide.
To inform our own programming on advancing gender-balanced appointments and to establish a scalable, replicable, transformative model for advancing gender-balanced appointments, RepresentWomen gathered learnings from five similar initiatives around the country.
The following summary reviews these conversations:
- Key ingredients for success
- Stumbling blocks
- What they wish they knew
- Common tactics
Click here to access the guide.
For its inaugural Solutions Summit, RepresentWomen gathered experts in election administration, voting rights, and democracy reform to discuss the viable, scalable, and transformative initiatives that will strengthen our democracy. Over the course of three days, they held sessions on fair elections, fair access, and fair representation, ending each day with ways we could take actions to advance the solutions discussed that day.
They compiled all of those ideas, resources, and guides into one place to create this 2022 Solutions Summit Resource Guide, which provides a plethora of take-action options so you can be a part of the solution.
Click here to download the guide.
The internet is a tool that can simplify and encourage democratic engagement, but the rise of online disinformation challenges even the world’s most robust democracies. While the most recognizable disinformation campaigns are related to national politics, disinformers frequently employ narratives targeting women’s gender and sexuality in order to disrupt democracy. This is often then amplified by media agents and the general population, who may not have the intent to drive disinformation nor the capacity to discern it. NDI’s robust research in this field concludes that gendered disinformation is the use of false information to confuse or mislead by manipulating gender as a social cleavage to attack women and/or to sway political outcomes. It has three primary goals: to keep women out of politics; to change the views of women and men about women’s political participation; and specifically to change party policies or political outcomes. In short, it aims to undermine women’s free and equal participation in politics to the detriment of inclusive, resilient democracy.
Based on research conclusions, this paper outlines recommendations for NDI, its partners and those working globally to mitigate the democratic harms of disinformation, to ensure women’s safe participation and leadership in politics, and to monitor the social media and information environment in elections.
Click here to access the guide.
This guide is designed to increase the understanding of the legal obligations of countries in the West and Central Africa (WCA) region to achieve gender equality in decision-making. It focuses on strengthening efforts to improve the legal framework in the region to ensure that laws are clearly drafted, implementable and effective. Special focus is devoted to the processes by which laws supporting political participation of women are developed, negotiated, drafted, passed and implemented. It aims to strengthen law-making processes that build and secure the legal rights of women who want to run for elections and who are ready to take over leadership positions in their parliaments and governments. Legal instruments are presented that can be used to advance the political participation of women.
The comparative experiences presented in this guide address both examples of good practices and laws that have failed because their regulations are imprecise, unclear and/or lack effective sanctions. The guide presents also various provisions of laws resulting from different constitutional requirements or electoral systems, assessing their advantages and disadvantages.
Click here to download the guide published by UN Women in 2021.
This Handbook has been developed as publication by register of Political Parties with support from the Papua New Guinea Election Commission and the United Nations Development Programme in Papua New Guinea. This is part of UN Women Make the Change programme funded by the Australian Government’s Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development Programme.
Click here to download the report.
Upcoming Event:
Regional Dialogue on Advancing Transformative Gender Social Norms to Enhance Women and Youth Participation
The main purpose of the Regional Dialogue is to promote transformative gender norms by addressing the root causes of inequality and transforming the underlying social, legal, and economic structures…
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