Partner News

International IDEA works to reduce the gap between women's rights as affirmed in the legal texts in the different Arab countries and the low rates of women in decision-making positions.

The 22 years old Saraswati Nepali is the mom of two kids and lives approximately five hours' drive (and five hours walk) away from the headquarter of Karnali Province, Surkhet—a place that paid the heaviest of prices in the 10 year-long armed conflict from 1996-2006. Her first son is eight years old, and her second son is four and half years old, almost as old as her term of office as a ward member in Shiwalaya Rural Municipality (RM) of Karnali Province.

Advancing gender equality in the context of the climate crisis and disaster risk reduction is one of the greatest global challenges of the 21st century.

The global proportion of women parliamentarians has increased by 0.6 percentage points to reach 26.1 per cent according to the IPU’s latest Women in Parliament in 2021 report. This is in line with progress seen in the past two years. The increase can be largely attributed to the critical role played by well-designed quotas.

By Ashim Steiner

In a region that has seen the greatest progress in political gender equality in the last two decades, Paraguay stands out, but for the wrong reasons: it has the third-lowest percentage of women in parliament in the Americas, with 17.5%, roughly half the regional average of 33.9%. When considering other elective positions, the divide widens.

After a quarter of a century of democratic experience that followed another 25 years of a revolutionary process that put women’s emancipation at the centre of the revolutionary discourse, women in Mozambique still face social, economic and political exclusions that impact their participation and representation in politics in general and in electoral processes in particular, while constituting 51 per cent of the population and 53 of the electorate.

Women make up over half of Myanmar’s population, yet significant obstacles remain for women to be able to participate in political processes and to achieve equal representation in Myanmar’s state institutions. Before the military coup on 1 February 2021, Myanmar’s 2020 general elections saw an increased number of women elected as members in legislatures (16 per cent) in comparison to the 2015 elections (13 per cent).

International IDEA, together with our funding partners and civil society organizations (CSOs), have been convening an annual National Forum on Women in Politics (NFWP) in Fiji since 2018.