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Though often less formal in nature, caucuses of women parliamentarians have proven to be useful mechanisms for building consensus among women representatives across party lines on a variety of issues. These forums provide a space for women to exchange ideas, to form collective platforms on particular policies and to support one another in the traditionally male-dominated parliamentary environment.

From the Library

Gender, cities and local governance in the Arab world

Submitted by iKNOW Politics on Thu, 2010-03-18 13:05
2010-04-14 00:00
2010-04-15 18:00
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City & Province/State: 
Cairo
Country: 
Egypt
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The symposium « Gender, cities and local governance in the Arab world and in the Mediterranean region» aims to study urban development by focusing on gender issues and the role of women in this process because social norms related to gender are linked to the internal transformations within any given society. The symposium will discuss the role of women in urban planning and management. Women’s daily experience and activities within the public space are different from men’s own perceptions about the city: social activities, social interactions, employment or the daily schedule for example vary greatly and also depend on norms and social values. We contend that studying urban spaces through the lens of gender is a relevant approach to enrich the existing literature focusing on social, cultural, economic and political issues inside the city. While there is a growing body of research focusing on gender in the field of urban studies it is important to broaden and deepen the scope of the research on these issues.

To find more details please contact Safaa Monqid and visit conference website.


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Ghana: Official appeals to women to participate in politics

Submitted by iKNOW Politics on Thu, 2010-03-18 12:54
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Mrs. Melonin Asibi, the Brong-Ahafo Regional Director of the Department of Women, has appealed to women to get actively involved in district assembly elections. She said since women were in the majority, there was the need for them to get active in politics especially at the grassroots level.

She expressed concern about the low participation of women in the region in district assembly elections and said only 234 women contested in the 2006 district assembly election and 58 were elected.

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To read the complete story please visit The Ghanaian Journal.


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World: Open Forum: Will the U.S. follow India's example?

Submitted by iKNOW Politics on Thu, 2010-03-18 04:07
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The leadership of women in politics took a new turn in 1993 when India put into place a 50 percent quota for women at the level of local governance. From 1993 onward, more than 1 million women have served on Indian village, block and district-level councils.

On March 8, the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, a bill was proposed in the Indian parliament -- and successfully passed the next day -- imposing a 33 percent quota for women in India's federal and state assemblies.

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To read the complete news piece please visit SFGate.


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Election: Sudan

Submitted by iKNOW Politics on Wed, 2010-03-17 11:05
2010-04-11 00:00
2010-04-11 18:00
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Country: 
Sudan
Description: 

Sudan

Sudan elects on national level a head of state - the president - and a legislature. The president is elected for a five year term by the people. Elections for the unicameral, 3SDG.gif60-member National Assembly were last held in December 2000. To read further on the politics in Sudan please visit ACE Electoral Knowledge Network.

The first round of Presidential elections will take place on April 11, 2010. The Sudan National Election Commission released the following manuals to assist citizens understand the voting process:
- Polling and Counting Guide
- An Election Reporting Handbook
- Civic and Voter Education Guidebook.

We invite individuals and other organizations from Sudan working in the area of promoting women in politics to share their views, agenda for the political parties and campaigns on iKNOW Politics.


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India:DMK to train women cadres in governance

Submitted by iKNOW Politics on Mon, 2010-03-15 15:06
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As the bill reserving one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies awaits to be passed by parliament, Tamil Nadu's ruling DMK party is planning to hold camps across the state to empower its women cadres in governance.

"We plan to train DMK party women in various aspects of governance. We want to groom our party women so that they are ready as and when the 33 percent reservation for women comes into effect," Kanimozhi, party Rajya Sabha member and daughter of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi, said.

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To read the complete news story please visit Sify News.


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Iraq: Foreign Policy: Iraq's Forgotten Women

Submitted by iKNOW Politics on Mon, 2010-03-15 14:07
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Economically, women are vastly underrepresented in the work force as employment is still limited to mostly the army and the police. The Women's Ministry barely has any budget allocations, which has led to the resignation of ministers (most notably, Nawal al-Samaraie, minister for women's affairs, tendered her resignation in February 2009). Girls have a high rate of illiteracy and often drop out of schools due to economic and security reasons. Domestic violence is increasing, as is trafficking in women, and the Iraqi government estimates there are up to 3 million widows in Iraq today.

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To read the complete news story please visit NPR.


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Myanmar: Amid Threats, Women Dissidents Stick to Political Beliefs

Submitted by iKNOW Politics on Thu, 2010-03-11 22:08
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While Aung San Suu Kyi remains the most widely-known woman suppressed for her political views in Burma, the jails in that military-ruled country continue to be filled by lesser-known women dissidents being held on a range of questionable charges.

Mid-February saw the latest group of female political activists thrown into jail with a two-year prison term, including hard labour, for a "crime" they committed four months ago – donating religious literature to a Buddhist monastery, an act that the junta deemed as "disturbing the peace."

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To read the complete story please visit IPS News.


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United Nations: RP Senator Presides Over UN Session for Women Parliamentarians

Submitted by iKNOW Politics on Thu, 2010-03-11 20:24
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Senator Pia Cayetano left the campaign trail in the Philippines momentarily to preside a special meeting of parliamentarians at the United Nations and to take part in another meeting with American legislators in Washington, DC.

Cayetano was elected President of the Coordinating Committee of Women Parliamentarians of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the highest position ever achieved by a Filipino in the 119-year-old IPU, considered as the United Nations of parliamentarians around the world.

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To read the complete story please visit Asian Journal.


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India: India's Upper House Passes Bill Reserving a Third of Legislative Seats for Women

Submitted by iKNOW Politics on Wed, 2010-03-10 00:19
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Indian lawmakers approved a historic bill Tuesday that would set aside one-third of all legislative seats for women, a move aimed at overturning six decades of male-dominated decision-making in this country.

The bill, which drew fierce opposition before its passage in the upper house of parliament, would guarantee seats for women in the national legislature and all state assemblies in the world's largest democracy, where women have been largely kept on the sidelines of the legislative process.

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To read the complete news piece please visit The Washington Post.


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China: Chinese Women Lag Only in Politics

Submitted by iKNOW Politics on Tue, 2010-03-09 20:40
Summary: 

Despite remarkable progress in improving the status of women in social and economic terms, China lags the rest of Asia in empowering women politically, a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) study has found.

But some six decades after Mao Zedong famously declared “women hold up half the sky”, women in China fare far better overall than their counterparts in India and the rest of the Asia-Pacific on almost every economic indicator, according to the report.

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To read the complete news piece please visit
The Hindu.


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Combating Trafficking in Persons: A Handbook for Parliamentarians

Jointly produced by the IPU and UNODC, the Handbook on Combating Trafficking in Persons is intended to encourage parliamentarians to take an active part in stopping human trafficking. It contains a compilation of international laws and good practices developed to combat human trafficking. It offers guidance on how national legislation can be brought in line with international standards. It outlines measures to prevent commission of the crime of trafficking in persons, to prosecute offenders and to protect victims. It also contains advice on how to report on this crime and how to enlist civil society in the cause.

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Empowering Parliaments through the Use of ICTs

The study, published by the United Nations Development Programme, has developed an analytical framework that focuses on the three core functions of Parliaments - legislation, representation and oversight - and establishes links between them. It provides concrete examples of the importance of ICTs for the empowerment and increased credibility of parliamentary institutions.

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Assessing Legislation - A manual for legislators

It aims at providing the legislators with the necessary tools that would help them in assessing legislations and proposing them to promote social and democratic change in their countries. The guide highlights and discusses several important topics such as the role of the legislator in facilitating socio-political and economic change, the legislative theory, and the methodology for problem solving, in addition to assessing the technical sufficiency for the proposed law.

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Enhancing Women’s Political Participation: A Policy Note for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States

This Policy Note presents a set of pragmatic recommendations that will enable policy makers to enhance women’s political participation in the region. These measures are the product of six national roundtable discussions organized in 2008 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Turkey and Ukraine as well as a regional conference in Turkey in December 2008. This Policy Note also presents the current status of, and opportunities for women’s participation in leadership and decision-making processes in the region. Based on the evidence and regional data collected and analysed, this Policy Note is for parliamentarians, government officials, legislators, political party members, civil society organizations working on enhancing women’s political participation and media with the recommended policy and action options in the following three areas:

1) Legal and institutional frameworks to promote women’s political participation;

2) Mechanisms and strategies to promote women’s political participation; and

3) Partnerships for women’s political participation: civil society organizations and the media.

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Philippines: Asia-Pacific Women Have Long Way to Go–UN

Submitted by iKNOW Politics on Tue, 2010-03-09 03:32
Summary: 

Women in the Asia-Pacific region have little economic and political power, impacting economic growth prospects of developing nations, the United Nations said in a report released Monday.

According to the UN Asia-Pacific Human Development Report to mark International Women’s Day, the region ranked near the worst in the world on issues such as protecting women from violence or upholding their rights to property.

“The key message [of the report] is that to meet any development goals that a society sets, you need the full participation and involvement of women,” Helen Clark, head of the UN Development Program (UNDP), said.

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To read the complete news piece please visit Inquirer Politics.


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