Women's Leadership
BJP’s Annapurna Devi became the Member of Parliament from Kodarma in Jharkhand in 2019 Lok Sabha election. A first-time MP, Devi isn’t new to politics. While she was forced to join politics with Rashtriya Janta Dal in 1998 after her husband, Ramesh Prasad Yadav, died and she contested the by-election from her husband’s MLA seat successfully, Devi never looked back. Three-time MLA, Devi served in varied roles in the state assembly before taking charge as an MP.
First female MP from Kodarma, Devi served as Minister of State, Ministry of Mines and Geology in Bihar assembly in 2000. She was also appointed as Chairperson of Committee on Women & Child Welfare in Jharkhand Legislative Assembly between 2005-2009. Finally, she was also the Cabinet Minister, Ministry of Irrigation, Women & Child Welfare, in Jharkhand assembly from 2012 to 2014. Currently, she is the member of the consultative committee in Ministry of Power and Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
In this interview, she talks about her political journey, working during the COVID-19 pandemic, the plight of Anganwadi workers, Kodarma’s mica opportunity, etc. among other things.
Click here to read the interview.
The country is rightly talking about Kamala Harris. But NBCLX’ Noah Pransky details three good signs that the signs of progress for women politicians doesn't stop there.
- Record number of Congressional nominees – According to the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute, 261 women have won major-party nominations for Congress, breaking the record of 234 set in 2018, with eight state primaries still to go. That includes 78 Republican women, blowing past the party’s 16-year-old record of 54. “We are never going to reach gender parity in this country in our legislative institutions if only one party is electing women,” said CAWP Director Debbie Walsh, heralding the milestones.
- America wants more female leaders – When NBCLX and Morning Consult asked the country to score their politicians, 15% of poll respondents gave female leaders “excellent” ratings, compared to just 8% of men. And when it came to specific characteristics, the country indicated women possessed better political skills than men. The research – coupled with stats indicating women win races at the same rate as men – suggests the problem is no longer getting America to vote for women, but getting more women to actually run for office and elevating more women to prominent positions where they can climb the political ladder.
- Kamala making more history – Harris will become just the third woman ever nominated to a major-party ticket and the first woman of color. She already broke ground as America’s first biracial Senator. “It opens up a world of possibilities for women,” said Walsh. “It signals to the world that women are taken seriously at that level…it also signals how many women are out there who can actually lead at this level.”
Click here to see the video.
Katarzyna Lubnauer is a Member of Parliament from Poland. This interview was conducted in March 2019 in the margins of the sixty-third session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW63) in New York.
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka pounds the table for women and girls.
As she speaks, it’s like a drumbeat — how girls need to complete their education, how they need access to technology, how child marriage and pregnancy will set a girl on a path of economic hardship. You can hear it as she points to girls who are trafficked — “you know they are lost to society and their rights will be violated in unimaginable ways.” And you can hear it as she speaks of the cycles of violence, abuse and poverty that trap women and girls for life. If they raise their voices, the outcomes may be more dangerous than if they stay silent.
Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka is the executive director of U.N. Women, a position she has now held for seven years. Earlier in her career, she held several positions in the South African government, including deputy president of South Africa — the first woman to hold that role.
Click here to read the full interview published by The New York Times on 9 August 2020.
Labour's campaign slogan "Let's Keep Moving" is hardly the most inspirational but reflects the conservative game plan - trade on the Covid response and stay on track.
With Parliament adjourned and politicians ready to hit the campaign trail, RNZ presents a series of interviews with New Zealand's political leaders.
Labour leader Jacinda Ardern describes the past three years - which have been dominated by disaster - as "unexpected, many high points but many moments no-one could have anticipated".
March 15th, Whaakari/White Island and the global pandemic will "feature heavily as defining experiences" in the history books, she says.
But she's also "mindful of the obligation that we have to the people who put us here" to make sure "alongside of responding to those issues that we still keep and stay on track with the agenda we came to Parliament with".
Click here to read the full article published by RNZ on 10 August 2020.
When COVID-19 started rapidly spreading throughout Europe in March, Norway was hard hit. But under Prime Minister Erna Solberg’s leadership, the country quickly adopted strict lockdown measures and ramped up testing. Five months later, Norway now enjoys one of the lowest fatality rates in Europe.
“This is the rainiest day Norway has had since the 1930s,” Solberg said during a TIME 100 Talks discussion with International Editor Dan Stewart. “But I think, in a way, we were lucky in the unluck that we had.”
Less than two weeks ago, Norway opened up its borders to parts of Europe, welcoming tourists back into the country. Throughout Norway, citizens are enjoying the summer after a long winter and spring in lockdown. “We believe of course that we are able to control it,” Solberg says. “We know much more about the virus than when we started.”
Click here to read the full article published by Time on 23 July 2020.
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.