International Women’s Day: Celebrating Achievements, Challenging Institutionalised Inequalities
Source: International IDEA
International Women’s Day (IWD) an event borne from the suffrage women’s movement since 1909, is a day that globally celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Each annual celebration calls for action to accelerate gender equality which often is linked to other institutionalised and social driven inequalities. This year’s theme to embrace equity is yet another call for action. Embracing equity (the quality of being fair and impartial) applies to all sectors including politics.
This call goes beyond equality especially in politics as equal opportunities are just not enough when women’s political participation is concerned. The World Economic Forum Gender Gap report of 2022 states that the political empowerment gender gap sub-index is at 22 per cent[1]. While this sub-index has the widest range of dispersion amongst countries, it is amongst the worst performing and manifests the largest remaining gender gap.
In 2022, only 34 gender-related legal economic reforms were recorded across 18 countries, the lowest number since 2001[2]. Gender related legal reforms for politics have been far less. The World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report highlights that its Political Empowerment subindex registered significant advance towards parity between 2006 and 2016, fluctuating until 2021, after which it stalled below its 2019 peak. At this rate, it will take 155 years to close the Political Empowerment gap. This implies that Africa and the world at large is far from reaching the 2030 Sustainable Goal number five target of women’s equal and effective political participation.
Click here to read the full article published by International IDEA on 7 March 2023.
International Women’s Day (IWD) an event borne from the suffrage women’s movement since 1909, is a day that globally celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Each annual celebration calls for action to accelerate gender equality which often is linked to other institutionalised and social driven inequalities. This year’s theme to embrace equity is yet another call for action. Embracing equity (the quality of being fair and impartial) applies to all sectors including politics.
This call goes beyond equality especially in politics as equal opportunities are just not enough when women’s political participation is concerned. The World Economic Forum Gender Gap report of 2022 states that the political empowerment gender gap sub-index is at 22 per cent[1]. While this sub-index has the widest range of dispersion amongst countries, it is amongst the worst performing and manifests the largest remaining gender gap.
In 2022, only 34 gender-related legal economic reforms were recorded across 18 countries, the lowest number since 2001[2]. Gender related legal reforms for politics have been far less. The World Economic Forum Gender Gap Report highlights that its Political Empowerment subindex registered significant advance towards parity between 2006 and 2016, fluctuating until 2021, after which it stalled below its 2019 peak. At this rate, it will take 155 years to close the Political Empowerment gap. This implies that Africa and the world at large is far from reaching the 2030 Sustainable Goal number five target of women’s equal and effective political participation.
Click here to read the full article published by International IDEA on 7 March 2023.