The Tanzanian Centre for Democracy – an organization bringing together all political parties to promote multi-party democracy in Tanzania – will conduct an assessment of local democracy later this year from a gender perspective using International IDEA’s State of Local Democracy (SoLD) assessment framework.

Since the revolution of January 2011, IDEA has been following closely the transition to democracy in Tunisia. Over the past two years, the Institute has strengthened its presence on the ground to provide support to the ongoing constitutional process.

Lima, 8 March 2013

International IDEA joins the rest of the world in celebrating International Women’s Day 2013 with the theme: “Women as Agents of Change”.

Gender equality in politics is not about the system allowing women in. It is not about politics giving something to women. It is about women actively taking their rightful place as equals with men in political decision-making. It is about women being agents of change.

Releasing its annual analysis on the statistics on women MPs ahead of International Women’s Day (8th March), the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) found 2012 represented a year of higher than usual level of progress on women’s political participation. The global average of women in parliaments by the end of 2012 stood at 20.3 per cent, up from 19.5 per cent in 2011. With the exception of 2007, the average annual rate of increase in recent years has been 0.5 percentage point.

8 MARCH 2013

On this International Women’s Day, we imagine a world free of violence against women and girls, a world in which women and girls do not fear being attacked in their homes or communities, and one where would-be perpetrators know they will be held accountable for their crimes.

The theme for International Women’s Day this year is “A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women.”