Partner News

The National Democratic Institute (NDI), an iKNOW Politics Partner, is seeking a Director of Women's Programs: Women's Political Participation, based in Washington, D.C.
To see the vacancy notice and to apply, please visit: the National Democratic Institute

The United Nations Development Programme is seeking a Gender Practice Leader for its regional centre in Bangkok, Thailand.
To view the vacancy notice and apply online, please visit: UNDP jobs at http://jobs.undp.org.

An overview of UNDP's engagement at the 54th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), to be held from March 1 to March 12, 2010.

The Commission on the Status of Women was in full swing on Tuesday, with countries continuing to report on progress since Beijing and UNDP participating in side events on HIV/AIDS, the Beijing Platform for Action’s links to achieving the MDGs, and considerations of gender in the mitigation of and response to climate change.

Women Must Be Involved and Funded in Post-Crisis Responses“Women are not heard, not respected and not funded,” said Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, at the UNDP/UNIFEM panel discussion, “The Price of Peace: Financing Gender Equality in Post-Conflict Recovery and Reconstruction.” Robinson called for a requirement that 30 percent of negotiators in all peace processes be women for the UN to be involved.

New York/Geneva, 3 March 2010 - No. 336Taking stock of women’s political participation today gives cause for guarded satisfaction. Fifteen years after the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, overall improvements have been registered in parliamentary and executive spheres of government. Still, the target of gender balance in politics is far off in too many countries. In the words of Anders B. Johnsson, Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), “Things have certainly improved, but not nearly as much as we would want them to”.

The new decade begins with the election of another woman president. Laura Chinchilla, candidate for the Partido Liberación Nacional, won the presidential race in Costa Rica with 46.8 percent of the vote. In Chile, meanwhile, Michelle Bachelet is ending her term with an approval rating of 83 percent. Their stories are no longer mere anecdotes, but are charting a new course for women in Latin American politics.

Women in the Asia Pacific region have the lowest rates of representation in politics, employment and property ownership, a new report presented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has revealed.The Asia Pacific Human Development report on gender, which was made public on the occasion of the 100th International Women’s Day today, revealed that women in the Asia Pacific region are socially, physically and economically backward and the progress remains slow particularly in South Asia.

To better clarify the conceptual linkages and potential programmatic synergies between electoral assistance and parliamentary development, UNDP’s Democratic Governance Group requires the services of a consultant to develop a Concept Note that builds on the backgrounder prepared by the UNDP Brussels Office and reflects all of UNDP’s interests in electoral assistance and parliamentary development, including the pros and cons of closer integration and the practical impediments and recommendations for doing so.