Five females from the Asia-Pacific region spoke at the UN General Assembly’s session 79 September 2024. (Clockwise): H.E. Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, Prime Minister of Samoa; H.E. Hilda Heine, President of Marshall Islands; H.E. Penny Wong, Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs; H.E. Uduch Sengebau, Senior Vice President of Palau; and H.E. Retno Lestari Priansari Marsudi, Indonesia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Studies have shown that the higher percentage of women in the parliament overall bring greater focus to issues affecting women. Women’s participation in politics is an essential requirement to gender equality and a genuine democratic process. It allows women to be directly involved in the public process of decision-making, and is an effective way of providing more accountability to women.
Women’s political accountability starts with increasing the number of women who are in positions of decision-making however it is not enough to be stopped there. What is needed are gender-sensitive reforms to governance that enable all elected officials to be more effective in encouraging gender equality in public policy, and also ensuring the implementation.
One of the main pillars of the work of UN Women is to improve women’s participation in politics and ensuring good governance. make sure that the decision making processes can be participatory as well as fair, responsive and inclusive. The efforts are targeted through strategic entry points that improve the standing of women, generating wide-ranging lasting, long-term effects.
The assistance is offered to assist women with the tools to convert into law the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) which is currently adopted by a majority of world governments and a legal guarantee of gender equality. Another approach is working with various stakeholders, such as women’s groups, government and the UN system, and the private sector to get more women involved in leadership positions in government, educate women and increase women’s abilities to participate actively in elections as voters and candidates.
UN Women in Action
Women’s leadership development for women, Papua New Guinea, June 2024. Photo: UN Women/Reuben Tabel
Papua New Guinea: Women’s Leadership Training
Prior to Local Level Government elections in Papua New Guinea in 2024, UN Women conducted training for women who lead on the role of political leadership and strategy for campaigns. The course was designed to increase the capabilities of women leaders at the subnational levels by providing them with knowledge of the political system as well as messaging, campaign planning, communications strategies as well as through fostering networking. Learn more
Rural women in Timor-Leste leading the way
In Timor-Leste, UN Women is supporting women’s political participation through a collection of programmes aimed at building the capacity of women to play effective roles as political actors and to improve the gender-responsiveness of governance structures.
The Program to Enhance the Leadership of Rural Women and their Participation Nation Building in Timor-Leste (PERWL) is a program that targets Timorese rural women in order to build the capacities of women leaders and groups at local and national levels to take part in the nation-building process.
Objectives of PERWL:
To foster transformative leadership in communities and politics by participation and active involvement of women as the communities and possible leaders within the processes of politics and governance both at the community and local and community
To increase understanding of the value and impact of rural communities, particularly women, of gender mainstreaming in the process of building a nation as a way to help in the process of transforming citizenship and leadership
Contribute to government development, planning, and programming creation and budget allocation in response to the socio-economic conditions as well as the rights and needs of women living in rural areas.
Initiatives to increase female participation in political life are:
The pre-election training program of 1,265 women candidates from 13 districts. The training focused on the notions and fundamentals of transformative leadership, politics, and communities(tm) so that women can be prepared for formal tasks and, in the event that they are not elected as active members of their communities. From the 1,265 women leaders who received training on transformational leadership methods, 52 percent contesting the elections, and 55 percent of them were elected. Additionally, while the initial focus was on women but the Programme has since been able to train the male as well as female representatives of village councils of 13 districts to meet the demand.
The creation of a series of training materials on Strengthening the Role in the Suco Council’. Women on Suco Council’. Suco Council’. The OPE as well as INAP trainers were instructed in the use of those training materials.
UN Women has worked closely with the Local Development Program (LDP) to implement the pilot decentralization plan in 2 districts: Bobonaro as well as Lautem. The program explores various methods of governance decentralization including district and sub-district assemblies and PERWL is interested in what these models could be for women’s leadership as well as the participation of rural communities in politics.
UN Women has conducted dialogue between national women leaders as well as women’s representatives on suco councils of 13 districts. It was providing women from the districts to meet and voice their concerns to women from national leaders of governments, NGOs, and women members of parliament. The discussion led participants to reach an agreement on ways to improve the connections and support systems for local and national women leaders.
In order to strengthen the ongoing support for the principles of transformative leaders UN Women partnership with Forum Tau Matan (FTM) has created and developed rights-based, gender-sensitive civic education resources on the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste.
UN Women facilitated discussions between women of diverse political backgrounds to create a cross-party Women’s Political Platform adopted by 12 of 14 parties participating in the elections in 2007.
UN Women supported the establishment of the Gender Resource Centre under the National Parliament, which will raise awareness among lawmakers on gender-related issues.
In the lead-up to the 2007 presidential election of Timor-Leste, UN Women initiated an open debate in the presidential chamber on gender-based violence and women’s participation in politics. They also ran workshops for women who were members of political parties. The results of these activities led to the signature of a historic pledge to ensure women’s participation in politics.
Women take part in gender-sensitive governance in Aceh
In Aceh the women are still underrepresented in positions of decision-making and politics. Although Aceh is proud of its past of female leading and heroines, the predominant social and cultural standards in Aceh consider politics to be an arena for men.
The time of transition following the conflict is a chance to build a more equitable and democratic society. In order to make the most of this crucial time, UN Women supported partners to:
- Hold a seminar for the public about “Women’s Political Participation: Towards Gender Responsive Democratic Governance in Aceh”
- Conduct voter education seminars on a village-level
- Women candidates can be trained to campaign for the women’s rights. abilities
- Mobilize a media campaign encouraging women’s political participation
Make gender equality a priority. Qanun regarding to the Execution of Elections, which currently requires a 30 percent percentage quota of women to the Independent Elections Committee (KIP) and Election Oversight Committee (Panwaslu)
Make gender equality gender equality through the Qanun on Local Political Parties The law now requires 30% of all candidate for a political party be women.