OSCE/ODHIR organized recenlty Human Dimension Seminars devoted to The Role of Political Parties in the Political Process. For more information see http://www.iknowpolitics.org/node/41661

During the Seminar female representatives from political parties and women’s groups and NGO’s from Eastern Europe, CIS and Central Asian Countries but also from Morocco helped to fulfill lively discussion regarding equal participation of women and men in political life.

The most interesting discussions were hold during the working session focusing on equal participation of women and men in political parties. The participants commonly agreed that political parties play a critical role in facilitating women’s equal access to participation in the political process. The discussion during this working group was around the following points:

• the challenges and implementation of gender quota,
• the internal regulatory framework of political parties that creates barriers to women’s effective participation.

The women’s representative underlined following barriers and challenges of women’s political participation towards the OSCE region.

• lack of gender sensitive regulation of political parties,
• lack of funding especially for women’s candidates, 
• lack of institutional, political and legal support for women 
• insufficient gender mainstreaming in electoral systems.

Moreover, the participant's contributions confirmed the recent trend showing decrease of women’s involved in politics, both at the national and the local level. They commonly expressed the need of stronger commitment of OSCE participating states to the women’s political participation.

In particular, focusing on following issues:

• regulation of political party practices,
• implementation of gender quota towards the region in order to increase political membership of women,
• strengthening the capacity of electoral systems to ensure equal participation of women in elections
• strengthening the political capacity of women’s candidates trough education and training. 

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