Women's Leadership

African women from 15 countries across the continent gathered in Nairobi, Kenya from April 23rd to the 24th to deliberate and strategize on women's political leadership in Africa.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, where women hold just 23 percent of the seats in national parliaments and there are only three women heads of state, Catherine Samba-Panza, president of the Central African Republic (CAR), is an inspirational figure.

In late March, Raveela Gangula rallied a dozen women to stop a drunken man from savagely beating his wife in Muthangi, a village in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Although they restrained him and called the police, he was released that evening without charges.

Khyber Pakhtunkhawa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has announced that women police desks would be established at all 500 police stations of the province to facilitate the province’s female population.

Women’s empowerment and political participation are not only crucial for women: they are essential for effective democratic governance, one which promotes human rights and equity.  The same can be said about the importance of boosting youth political participation.

A group of around 800 Moroccans, mostly women, staged a march in the capital Rabat on Sunday demanding that a constitutional guarantee of gender equality be applied in the kingdom.

The WIP Study Trip to Iceland was a successful learning exercise about the global leader in gender equality.