INSPIRING CHANGE: WOMEN’S POLITICAL REPRESENTATION
development, and the International Knowledge Network on Women in Politics (iKNOW Politics20
). We
Left: The National Assembly of Nigeria. The UNDP has supported the development of Nigeria’s National Assembly Gender Technical Unit (GTU), which supports gender mainstreaming and women’s rights agenda at the Parliament. Below: Bangladeshi women visiting the Parliament pictured in the background. A UNDP project that includes a specific gender focus aims to increase the representation of women in Parliament and committees.
welcome participation, directly and via AGORA and iKNOW Politics, from all who share the objective of empowering women politically, and increasing the percentage of women legislators globally.
Endnotes
mentoring, mobilization and men”. Women who had contested in local self-government elections pointed out that having a large base of elected women at the Panchayat (local self-government) level is not enough to ensure that more women will contest or win elections at the state or higher levels. Hon. Shalini Tomar who contested state Assembly elections from Uttar Pradesh said, “education, self-confidence and leadership skills are very important to bridge this gap. For this capacity development, networking with other women in politics and mentoring is very important”. Pakistan: UNDP has supported
the establishment of a Women’s Caucus, whose aims include cutting across party lines, allowing consensus-building around priority issues concerning women, and ensuring that gender concerns are
addressed through legislation, policies and programmes. Bangladesh: UNDP’s project
includes a specific gender focus, through interventions which aim to increase the representation of women in Parliament and committees. Specific support has been provided to women Parliamentarians as part of a multi-party caucus on gender and via the Standing Committee on Women and Children Affairs. All knowledge material developed
by the project encompasses a gender component. For example, a study on gender mainstreaming in the Bangladesh Parliament was submitted to the Committee for Women and Children Affairs leading this Committee to initiate the drafting of an action plan for the implementation of key recommendations. UNDP also ensures gender messages are a
central component of parliamentary education initiatives; i.e.: roundtable discussions focusing on the gender aspects of the budget were held with parliamentary committees, and increasing their understanding of their role in budgetary oversight from a gender perspective. Other activities include: ensuring
that the Parliament’s human resources management systems are gender sensitive; developing a gender policy for Parliament; facilitating the introduction of a social impact assessment of legislation; and supporting women’s access to parliamentary committees’ inquiries.
In addition to this work being implemented by UNDP Country Offices, we are cooperating with partners to host two global online knowledge platforms - AGORA19 - the portal on parliamentary
1.
http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/ home/librarypage/womens-empowerment/ powerful-synergies/ 2.
http://iknowpolitics.org/en/2012/10/ipu- transforming-parliament-redress-gender-deficit 3.
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/ egm/eql-men/ 4.
http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/world.htm 5.
http://secretariat.thecommonwealth.org/ shared_asp_files/
GFSR.asp?NodeID=141095 6.
http://www.justice.gov.za/docs/other- docs/2005_GenderPoA20052015.pdf 7.
http://www.cpahq.org/cpahq/Mem/ About/Organisation/Commonwealth_Wom- en_Parliamentarians/Main/Women_MPs/
About_the_CWP.aspx?hkey=8251fefc-a08e- 441a-b575-e23e8ecd9a1f 8. Women and political leadership in the Commonwealth, Commonwealth Secretariat Information Brief
http://secretariat.thecommon-
wealth.org/files/256109/FileName/ 9.
http://www.voanews.com/content/ rwandan-parliament-female-majority-targets- equality/
1757899.html 10.
http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm 11. Dhaka Outcomes Document from the Commonwealth Workshop on Women’s Political Party Caucusing, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 16 June 2013 12.
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/ beijing/platform/
declar.htm 13. Women and political leadership in the Commonwealth, Commonwealth Secretariat Information Brief
http://secretariat.thecommon-
wealth.org/files/256109/FileName/ 14.
http://gfwip.org/ 15.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Bego%C3%B1a_Lasagabaster 16.
http://www.labour.org.nz/people/louisa- wall 17.
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/ cedaw/
cedaw.htm 18.
http://matangitonga.to/2014/02/13/ speaker-wants-more-women-parliament 19.
http://www.agora-parl.org/ 20.
http://www.iknowpolitics.org/
The Parliamentarian | 2014: Issue One | 27
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