In a representative democracy, political parties are vitally important. Political parties function as a link between state institutions and local grassroots organizations. It is political parties that aggregate interests, present political alternatives and nominate candidates. In all such matters, the political parties play an essential role for the advancement of women and the promotion of equality, as they function as the gatekeepers of candidate selection and political power. In this section, you will find information on the role of political parties in promoting women.
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This e-Primer looks at information and communications technology (ICT) for development through a gender lens. It provides a gender perspectives to issues of ICT policies; access and control; education, training and skill development; and content development, and introduces a framework to integrate gender in ICT for development and empower women.
How women participate in political parties – and how those parties encourage and nurture women’s involvement and incorporate gender-equality issues – are key determinants of women’s political empowerment. They are also key to ensuring gender-equality issues are addressed in the wider society. If strategies to promote women’s involvement in the political process are to be effective, they should be linked to steps parties can take across the specific phases of the electoral cycle – the preelectoral, electoral and post-electoral phases – and to the organization and financing of the parties themselves. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005 created the new autonomous Government of Southern Sudan [GoSS]. The GoSS was required to establish in-stitutions and processes of governance including at the local level, with no pre-vious experience in government and in an environment characterized by the tribal nature of its traditional social or-ganization, identity and culture.
This document details the DGTTF projects launched in South-Sudan, including Project II: Strategy for mainstreaming gender em-powerment in local government.
The report provides recommendations for MPs, constituents and for Parliament. Primary amongst these are that MPs need to develop a policy for the use of email and strategies for digital media that define the target audience and connect with their offline strategy. Constituents benefit when MPs are online and so citizens are encouraged to promote the internet and provide examples of good practice to break down barriers amongst those MPs who are more resistant. In the digital age democracy can be driven by both sides. Finally, the report recommends a review of the licensing and re-use of content created by Parliament.
This handbook is designed to assist parliamentarians in carrying out their oversight role on gender by developing a better understanding of the concept, providing a summary of the budget cycle process, discussing gender budgeting, and examining the gender dimensions of parliamentary committees, as well as suggestions for changing attitudes as a strategy for achieving gender equality.
The Women and Constitution Building Initiative in Nepal was initiated (June 2008) in the spirit of a newly formed Constitution Assembly (CA) which saw the election of a high percentage of women. International IDEA, together with its partners, identified a need for a greater understanding of how a constitution affects women’s lives and how women can contribute to the process of making a new constitution. Strategies were needed to support the creation of an inclusive political environment in a crucial period of Nepal’s history.
This publication provides an overview of the ‘fit’ of the various electoral systems with different kinds
Even though women represent more than half of the voting population in many countries and have been widely incorporated into the economic sphere over the last decade, reality tells us that there is still an important gap between these advances and women's access to elected or political party positions. While considerable improvements have taken place in women's participation in political decision-making bodies, the numbers continue to show substantial levels of underrepresentation. In the eighteen Latin American countries examined in this study, there is an average of two women representative for every ten male mayors, and those countries with an Upper Chamber have less than two women Senators for every ten men.
In oder to resolve this asymmetry, and in response to the demands of socially and politically organized women - as well as the international consensus supporting them- several countries have chosen to include quota mechanisms in electoral regulations. These quotas have been functioning with greater or lesser effectiveness depending on the context and regulatory framework in which they are applied.
This manual provides political party members and leaders with the means to implement concrete strategies for achieving equality for women within party organizations and to access positions of power and representation.
More than a year of research and field work in 18 Latin American countries is condensed in this publication, which describe 95 "good practices" implemented by party organizations. It also analyzes the progress and the challenges still facing women in politics, both in the region and in each of the countries studied.
The production of an English version was undertaken by UNDP and was made possible through the generous support of the United Nation’s Development Programmes Gender Team, in the Bureau for Development Policy.
The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the persistent obstacles to women’s and ethnic minority representation in politics, and to examine conditions and strategies across various countries that appear to facilitate better political representation of these groups.
Numerous behavioral studies have found women to be more trust-worthy and public-spirited than men. These results suggest that women should be particularly effective in promoting honest government. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find that the greater the representation of women in parliament, the lower the level of corruption. We find this association in a large cross-section of countries; the result is robust to a wide range of specifications.
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