Share of female lawmakers hits new global high
The share of female politicians around the world reached a record high of almost 17 percent in 2006 - up nearly 6 percentage points during the past decade - a global parliamentary group said on Thursday. The Inter- Parliamentary Union also found women preside over 35 of the world's 262 parliaments - another record high - with females elected to the position for the first time in Gambia, Israel, Swaziland, Turkmenistan and the United States, where Nancy Pelosi is now House Speaker. But the rate of increase in female legislators has slowed, the group said.
WashingtonPost.com - Reuters story - 1 March 2007

Parity: an uphill battle
France has made more progress in thirty years than in two centuries, but it is bringing up the rear compared to other European democracies. The Inter-Parliamentary Union has just established the global average of women in national parliaments. In single or lower chambers, 17.1 per cent of members of parliament are women: 40.8 per cent in the Nordic countries, 20 per cent in the Americas, 17.6 per cent in Europe (outside the Nordic countries), 16.5 per cent in Asia and 9.5 per cent in the Arab countries. As at 31 January 2007, only 35 of the world's 189 parliaments were presided over by women.
Le Monde, Editorial, 8 March 2007

Limited progress towards gender equality
Although more women than ever before are in work or looking for work, the past decade has seen only limited progress towards gender equality in wages and status, the International Labour Organization said on Thursday […] The ILO pointed out that women's share of global employment, at 40 per cent, is little changed from ten years ago, while the labour force participation rate - the proportion of women working or seeking work - is no longer rising. Only half of workingage women over 15 are employed, against seven in 10 men. Women made up a record 17 per cent of the world's parliamentarians last year, up from 11 per cent in 1995, according to the Genevabased Inter-Parliamentary Union which groups 148 national parliaments, writes Frances Williams. Nordic countries continued to elect the highest numbers of women, with an average of 41 per cent, followed by Costa Rica (39 per cent), the Netherlands (33 per cent) and Austria (32 per cent).
Financial Times.com - 8 March 2007

Women in politics connected by a new network
The first network of women in politics from around the world has been set up by the United Nations. Called the International Knowledge Network of Women in Politics (iKnowPolitics), the network is the joint brainchild of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).
TV5 Monde - 28 February 2007