Partner News

On the margins of the UN High-Level Political Forum, UN Women, UNICEF, UNHCR and the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights joined the Permanent Mission of Tunisia and the Office of the Permanent Observer for the League of Arab States to the United Nations at a side event, calling for the urgent repeal of gender-discriminatory nationality laws.

‘Step it up for gender equality’ was one among the many commitments renewed at the third South Asian Speakers Summit on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) implementation, convened by the International Parliamentary Union and Sri Lanka’s Parliament in Colombo, July 11-12, 2018.  

UN Women Malawi has engaged community radios in the country in a campaign to promote female aspirants through radio messages and radio talk shows.

Last Sunday’s elections in Mexico resulted in gender parity in the Parliament: with almost all the results counted, there are 246 women (48.6%) and 254 men (51.2%) in the Chamber of Deputies and 65 women (50.78%) and 63 men (49.22%) in the Senate. A provisional IPU calculation shows that Mexico has moved up from 9th to 4th place in the world ranking of women in parliament.

As a response to gender norms that continue to work against women’s entry into politics, 50 women across the eight provinces of the Solomon Islands are currently gathered in Honiara for the Second Practice Parliament for Women.

According to the International Parliamentary Union (IPU), these gender norms lay stronger emphasis on women’s role in the unpaid, domestic sphere.

In its highly anticipated parliamentary election in almost ten years, Lebanon saw a record number of women on the ballot. An unprecedented 113 women registered as candidates, and 86 of them made it to candidate lists. This was a whopping increase from 2009, when only 12 women candidates had registered.

Female parliamentarians worldwide called for immediate reforms to stop sexism, harassment and violence against women in parliaments. This includes urging all parliaments to set concrete targets and deadlines to achieve equal representation of women and men.

Women Speakers of Parliament will identify clear actions to eliminate barriers to women’s political participation, end harassment of female MPs, and promote inclusive parliaments.

By Brechtje Kemp

Morocco’s constitutional reform in 2011 forms the basis of new laws and practices which increased civil participation in the decision-making process, but more remains to be done. How to strengthen the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) as “the cement between government and citizens”?