Partner News

8 March 2011

On this 100^th International Women’s Day, we can dream of how the world can look if women have equal rights and opportunities to reach their full potential. 

Empowered women and girls have a truly transformative role to play in all our societies, with benefits for all.  Around the world, healthy, educated, employed, and empowered women break poverty cycles – not only for themselves, but for their families, communities, and countries too.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. The day was commemorated for the first time on 19 March 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, following its establishment during the Socialist International meeting the prior year. More than one million women and men attended rallies on that first commemoration.

To mark the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, women parliamentarians from different parts of the world are sharing their views on their experiences in politics. They answer questions about the importance of women in politics, their personal motivation to enter politics, how they would advise a young woman interested in entering politics, and achievements they are proud of.

To read the full interviews, please visit the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

A prominent Namibian politician and former Ambassador, Nora Schimming-Chase, called for the formation of a separate women’s political party at an event in honour of the Centenary Celebration of International Women’s Day.

“On this 100^th anniversary of International Women’s Day, only six countries within the SADC reached the protocol goal of 30% women in Parliament by 2010.  If we haven’t attained this goal, I don’t have much hope for 50/50 by 2015, so I’m suggesting some drastic measures.”

The Women's Caucus of the Constituent Assembly (CA) has published its position paper entitled - Women's Rights and Agenda to be incorporated in the New Constitution. The recommendations by women CA members were prepared on the basis of preliminary draft reports and concept papers of the constitutional and thematic committees of the CA. They represent the main agenda of women in the CA on matters which have been overlooked by these working committees.

UNDP Viet Nam country office is looking for an International Gender Expert with the deadline submission for application on Wednesday, 13 April 2011 at 5 PM. In close collaboration with relevant National Assembly (NA) and Provincial People's Councils' (PPCs) Deputies and project staff, the expert is required to:

Local elections on May 8 in Albania are an opportunity to put more women in public office in a country with one of the lowest percentages of elected women in Europe. That was the message delivered by Jozefina Topalli, Albania's speaker of parliament, to women who had just completed a 10-month program on campaign management, messaging and advocacy organized by NDI.

To read the complete article please visit NDI.org

International IDEA is looking to commission a regional analysis/case studies on political parties' constitutions/policy documents/manifestos, rules and regulations/procedures and practices from a gender perspective.

UPDATE:

Thank you for your interest. We are no longer accepting names for this consultancy. IDEA will contact those who meet their requirements.

We thank you for your interest.

MENA regional analysis project: Consultancy Request

In a bid to lend support to the process of electoral reform in Tunisia as preparations get under way for the election of a Constituent Assembly on 24 July 2011, the IPU dispatched an expert mission to the country from 22 to 24 March 2011. Following consultations with Tunisian women politicians, members of civil society organizations and representatives of local and international youth movements, the mission met with the subcommittee tasked with writing the draft electoral law.