A flicker of hope for women across Egypt may have been sparked on Friday, after the first female to head a political party in the country was elected.
Antoinette Fouque, the co-founder the French Women’s Liberation Movement, has died at the age of 77.
She died at her home in Paris between Wednesday night and early Thursday morning.
A heroine of Ukraine's Orange Revolution, Yulia Tymoshenko has been released after spending three years in jail, in one of several dramatic events to have swept the country she once served as prime minister.
In anticipation of local government elections, much of the discourse in recent months has challenged the laws put forward by provincial governments under judiciary-induced deadlines, including lukewarm lobbying for the greater inclusion of women at the grass-roots level.
The political parties may be wooing women with their electoral promises; the latest voters' list shows a slide in the sex ratio in the enrolments done in the district. The sex ratio in the electoral rolls has declined from 913 females per 1,000 males in 2009 to 886 females in 2014.
Saudi women will have the chance for the first time next year to vote and run in the municipal elections, but they are possibly facing an uneven playing field.
In Honduras and El Salvador, a spotlight on efforts towards addressing electoral challenges through trainings for candidates.