Cote d’Ivoire has launched the first-ever Women’s Caucus in the National Assembly, a forum aimed at advancing women’s rights and mainstreaming gender throughout all parliamentary work. Inspired by IPU’s new guidelines on women’s caucuses, the group, representing all political parties, will work to draft new laws on gender equality and to review discriminatory legislation. It will also promote the participation of women in all parliamentary decision-making levels and will be responsible for improving gender-sensitive infrastructure and culture, as well as ensuring that efforts towards gender equality are shared by both male and female parliamentarians. The Women’s Caucus also aims to be at the heart of the national reconciliation process after the post-electoral crisis in 2010 that resulted in a brief but bloody civil war that killed 3,000 people. IPU, which sent a first team of experts to Cote d’Ivoire in June 2013, has already supported similar initiatives in post-conflict countries, including Burundi and Rwanda, where women’s representation in parliament has increased significantly in recent years. However, Cote d’Ivoire currently ranks 114th in IPU’s world ranking of women in parliament. Only 26 out of its 249 members (10.4 per cent) of the National Assembly are women.
Cote d’Ivoire has launched the first-ever Women’s Caucus in the National Assembly, a forum aimed at advancing women’s rights and mainstreaming gender throughout all parliamentary work. Inspired by IPU’s new guidelines on women’s caucuses, the group, representing all political parties, will work to draft new laws on gender equality and to review discriminatory legislation. It will also promote the participation of women in all parliamentary decision-making levels and will be responsible for improving gender-sensitive infrastructure and culture, as well as ensuring that efforts towards gender equality are shared by both male and female parliamentarians. The Women’s Caucus also aims to be at the heart of the national reconciliation process after the post-electoral crisis in 2010 that resulted in a brief but bloody civil war that killed 3,000 people. IPU, which sent a first team of experts to Cote d’Ivoire in June 2013, has already supported similar initiatives in post-conflict countries, including Burundi and Rwanda, where women’s representation in parliament has increased significantly in recent years. However, Cote d’Ivoire currently ranks 114th in IPU’s world ranking of women in parliament. Only 26 out of its 249 members (10.4 per cent) of the National Assembly are women.