women's empowerment

AWID participated at the Fifth session of the Open Working Group (OWG5) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)[1] that took place from 25 to 27 November 2013 in New York, the latest UN meeting to discuss shaping a new sustainable development agenda in relation to issues of macroeconomic policies, among others.

AWID joined a group of women’s rights organizations in influencing this process, here is a short analysis of what happened and what is still needed to advance women’s rights and gender equality in a sustainable development framework.

A little more than two months have gone by since the most recent midterm elections were held in Argentina. Amidst widespread concern over a drop in  foreign reserves, it seems that Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government has started to make significant changes to preserve the economic and political model in place while trying to respond to international financial markets’ expectations. Such changes may mean that the polls were heard and that the government could realize the time has come for implementing a different strategy.

Sometime in 1974, a woman in her mid thirties made history as Kenya’s first female assistant minister. She had just quit her position as an associate professor at the University of Nairobi to plunge into politics and clinched the Funyula Constituency seat. So impressed by her performance was then President Jomo Kenyatta, that he appointed Prof Julia Ojiambo, assistant minister for Education.

“In Chile, the skirt’s in charge,” blared the headline of Santiago tabloid La Cuarta the day after Michelle Bachelet and Evelyn Matthei advanced to a second round in the country’s presidential race. Voters today will pick between the two life-long politicians in the first presidential election in Latin America where all the candidates are female.But having such high-profile women in Chilean politics masks a country that is falling behind its peers on women’s issues.

When Chileans vote Sunday for their next leader, they will choose between a former president seeking to expand access to higher education broadly and a staunch conservative opposing tax increases aimed at reducing Chile’s high levels of inequality.
The fact that both candidates — Michelle Bachelet, a former president who narrowly missed a first-round victory in November, and Evelyn Matthei, her right-wing opponent — are women reveals an area where Latin America is surging: the empowerment of female leaders in politics.

In the last presidential elections, women voters and MPs faced persecution, death threats and violence. With 2014’s elections drawing near, NATO Channel speaks to female MPs who discuss the real issues facing female voters.

Women’s rights have come a long way in the last 12 years in Afghanistan yet the struggle for emancipation is still in its infancy.

We invite you to read the full article published December 13, 2013

With her confirmation to the second highest court in the nation very early Thursday morning, Judge Nina Pillard should immediately rocket to the top of the Democratic shortlist of potential nominees to the Supreme Court. Though there are a number of Democratic judges who possess the youth, brilliance and legal credentials required from a new Supreme Court justice, Pillard brings something to the bench that is quite rare among judges — she’s won two of the most important civil rights victories to reach the Supreme Court during her career.

Remarks by Catherine M. Russell, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues at the National Democratic Institute (NDI) Offices in Washington, DC