Asia and the Pacific

Lacking basic services and living under the constant threat of eviction, the people of Bhola wanted to change their situation but needed support to formulate a plan of action. Enter the Local-to-Local Dialogue, a strategic process developed by the Huairou Commission through decades of grassroots women’s organizing efforts. Through the L2L process, women document their realities, build consensus, form alliances, and build a power base to access resources and create solutions to community issues. They engage in decision-making in partnership with local authorities.

While this horrifying scene may resemble what happened in that football stadium 13 years ago, in fact, much has changed. Within hours of Najiba's horrible death being broadcast worldwide, women in Afghanistan poured into the streets, seeking justice.

The leading voice was Fawzia Koofi, 37, an MP from the northern Badakhshan province, who is also Deputy Speaker of the Afghan parliament and aims to lead the country after elections due within two years.

Women will account for 30 percent of parliamentary seats and half the country’s workforce by 2021, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told an international audience on Monday as she spelled out the steps taken by her government to boost women’s political, economic and social empowerment.

Globally, women are also making progress, but it’s still not enough, she said at the programme organised by US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to discuss women’s equal partnership with men and their empowerment.

´One billion rising´, a global campaign for gender equality and justice was launched in the capital on Sunday amid a program attended by more than 50 noted women rights activists from south Asian nations, local civil society organizations, students, politicians, journalists and people from different walks of life.

Speaking at the program, South Asian coordinator of the campaign Kamla Bhasin said that ´one billion rising´ was a historical attempt and an unique call for gender equality and justice.

The lack of female participation in Malaysian politics has likely caused the years of neglect over issues of concern to women although the gender makes up half the country’s 13 million-strong electorate, analysts have said.

According to statistics from the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, only 10.4 per cent of the country’s 222 federal lawmakers and eight per cent of the 576 assemblymen in state assemblies nationwide are women.