Report / White Paper

Report of the United Nations Secretary-General on women's participation in public life

United Nations

This report contains an examination of global trends, persistent barriers and opportunities with regard to women’s full and effective participation and decision-making in public life, as well as the elimination of violence, for achieving gender...

SHAPING THE INTERNATIONAL AGENDA II: Progress on raising women’s voices in intergovernmental forums

Thursday, January 21, 2021

Shaping the International Agenda II: Progress on raising women’s voices in intergovernmental forums

Women’s full and equal participation in all decision-making processes is necessary to achieve gender equality and drive progress towards sustainable development. In 2017, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN...

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Eliminating violence against women in politics: What works and what doesn’t?

Violence against women in politics is an intolerable violation of women’s rights which poses fundamental challenges to democratic values and electoral processes. To tackle this issue, the Kofi Annan Foundation commissioned Carmen Alanis, the first...

Friday, November 13, 2020

The Reykjavik Index for Leadership 2020/2021

Kantar

Women Political Leaders and Kantar came together in 2018 to create the Reykjavík Index for Leadership– the first measure of perceptions of women and men in terms of their suitability for leadership. The initial findings revealed significant, complex...

Monday, November 09, 2020

The impact of the cost of politics on inclusive political participation in Uganda

NIMD

This study applied a conceptual framework that uses a comparative and gendered approach to estimate the cost of politics, using a set of pre-identified variables regularly incurred by both candidates seeking political office and elected...

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Women constituion-makers: comparative experiences with representation, participation and influence

International IDEA

On 24–25 October 2019, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA)—together with the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law (ECCL) and the Political Settlements Research Programme (PSRP) at the University...

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Data and violence against women in politics: Expert group meeting report and recommendations

UN Women organized an Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on “Data and violence against women in politics” (VAWP) on 4–5 December 2019, in New York, as a part of its ongoing efforts to tackle this issue. More than 40 experts attended the meeting, including...

Friday, July 31, 2020

Women political leaders: the impact of gender on democracy

WFD

This report aggregates over five hundred pieces of academic and institutional research on the ways in which women’s political careers differ from their male counterparts, what stands in their way, and what impact their political presence has on...

Thursday, July 30, 2020

In ranked choice elections, women win

Represent Women

RepresentWomen tracks women's representation and leadership in the United States and around the world to identify the "best practices" for creating a more representative government. Our research indicates that even as more women run, electoral rules...

Thursday, July 09, 2020

Taking stock of progress on gender equality using the global state of democracy indices

International Idea

Since 1995, the world has made important strides in advancing gender equality. The increase in female representation in parliaments across the globe has been driving these advances, although there has been some progress on other indicators used to...

Thursday, July 09, 2020

Gender-based violence and COVID-19

UNDP

Gender-based violence (GBV) increases during every type of emergency – whether economic crises, conflict or disease outbreaks. Pre-existing toxic social norms and gender inequalities, economic and social stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,...

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Justice for women amidst COVID-19

UNDP

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global emergency of multiple dimensions. Most national governments have adopted extraordinary measures to protect their citizens and overcome the pandemic. Prior to the COVID-19 global crisis, 2020 was expected to...

Friday, May 22, 2020

Gender and crisis of COVID-19 in Tunisia: Challenges and recommendations

This brief summarizes challenges and recommendations of the impact of the recent pandemic of COVID-19 in Tunisia on gender-based violence, access to justice, women and health, and women’s leadership and political participation. It makes...

Thursday, March 26, 2020

Inter-Parliamentary Union

Women in parliament: 1995–2020 - 25 years in review

This year’s report looks back at 25 years of women in parliament on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Beijing conference and its groundbreaking action plan for gender equality. IPU analysis shows that gender parity is possible. The overall...

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Pursuing equality in rights and representation – Women’s experiences running for parliament in Lebanon’s 2018 elections

In late 2018 and early 2019 UN Women interviewed 87 per cent of the women who ran for Parliamentary election (75 of the 86 women; of the 113 women who registered to run, 86 made it on to candidate lists). This report summarizes their stories and...

Monday, January 27, 2020

Women human rights defenders: Insights from the struggle

Forum Asia

Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) have long played a central role in the advancement of human rights. In the fight against impunity and repression, WHRDs have been among one of the most vocal in calling for human rights to be protected and upheld...

Friday, December 20, 2019

Breaking cycles of violence: Gaps in prevention of and response to electoral-related sexual violence in Kenya

Relief Web

Introduction I was targeted because my husband is from a different community that was perceived to hold a differing political opinion from the one of the dominant community we live in.’ Survivor of sexual violence during the 2017 elections...

Thursday, December 05, 2019

Digital Rights Foundation

Online participation of female politicians in Pakistan's General Elections 2018

This research report seaks to analyze the use of social media during the 2018 General Election in Pakistan. The report focuses on online participation and harassement of female politicians along with issues pertinent to elections in the digital age...