Education and development: the new passwords of women
Some days prior to International Women's Day, we called the correspondent of a newspaper at the United Nations Office in Geneva to alert him to the latest IPU statistics on women in parliaments. His response was emblematic: “I will see what space my newspaper can give to your story. You know that the international media will have to run after two important women on the same day: Hillary Clinton and Micheline Calmy-Rey”. They are respectively the new US Secretary of State and the Swiss Foreign Minister. Two women were making headlines in Geneva, while in Paris another woman Prime Minister was being received by French President Nicolas Sarkozy: Ms. Ioulia Timochenko. Not to mention a women President in Iceland, called on to save her country from complete financial disaster. In other regions too male strongholds are being conquered by women, such as Latin America, where the Presidents of Argentina and Chile, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Michelle Bachelet, hold power, or Asia, where two women candidates were fighting for supreme power in Bangladesh: Sheikha Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia.
This breakthrough of women in politics is not only evident at the executive level but also at the parliamentary level.
The latest IPU analysis and statistics shows that the world average of women members across all parliamentary chambers reached an all-time high of 18.3 per cent, following elections held in 2008. Although only one out of five parliamentarians elected was a woman, the trend is clear: women are slowly but surely climbing to the highest ranks of power.
In the words of Ms. Rose Mukantabana, Speaker of Rwandan Chamber of Deputies - the parliamentary chamber with the highest percentage of elected women legislators in the world (56.3%) - the novelty is that women have a new password to open the door to the most hallowed of halls: development and education. Two words that adolescent girls and women victims of female genital mutilation (FGM) intend to use to fight this harmful practice until it is eradicated. The same words that women in the Gulf States and in all corners of the world are committed to using to obtain their rights in the name of equality for a fairer and safer world, one free of nuclear threats. But this is another challenge that women and men will have to tackle.
L.B.
Read in the press
Women hold just 18% of Parliament seatsWomen hold just over 18 percent of the seats in parliaments around the world, a 60 percent increase since 1995 but a long distance from equality with men in national legislative bodies, the Inter- Parliamentary Union said in its annual report card. “We still feel that progress is slow,” said Philippines Senator Pia Cayetano, the President of the IPU Committee of Women Parliamentarians, stressing that on average fewer than one in five legislators is a woman. “The challenges that women face in accessing politics are immense,” she told a news conference. “Prejudices and cultural perceptions about the role of society are among the greatest obstacles to women's entry.” During 2008, parliamentary elections and renewals took place in 54 countries and women's representation increased to 18.3 percent — up from 17.7 percent last year and 11.3 percent in 1995, the IPU report said…”It is unfortunate that we are not seeing progress being made across all parliaments of the world,” IPU President Theo-Ben Gurirab said in a statement. “While there were some impressive gains made in 2008, particularly in Africa, where Rwanda's lower house elected a majority of women members, more needs to be done in those countries where women are largely absent from decision-making bodies.”
Associated Press story in the International Herald Tribune - 06 March 2009
Women account for 19% of MPs in Africa, according to IPU official
The Speaker of the Parliament of Benin, Mr. Mathuring Coffi Nago, who is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, said in Lomé that women account for 19 per cent of MPs in Africa and 18.4 per cent of women MPs worldwide. “Although significant progress had been made over the past years and the figures for Africa can hardly be considered unsatisfactory compared with the figures for other parts of the world, we must recognize that much remains to be done”, said Mr. Nago In his view, it was normal for women - who represent half and sometimes more of the population of countries - “to aspire to more equitable representation in our country's institutions of governance”.
Agence de Presse Africaine (APA - Senegal) - 16 February 2009
Joseph Stiglitz points a finger at offshore banking centres
Tax evasion and fraud as well as financial centres that welcome illicit and private funds of States will be targeted by the recommendations of the Stiglitz Commission. “We are not only looking at offshore centres as will probably be the case at the G20 Summit. It will be easy for the Summit to accuse countries that will not be present in London and who therefore cannot defend themselves. We are also concerned with offshore centres that are equally secret and opaque”, said Joseph Stiglitz. The Nobel laureate in Economics heads a commission appointed by the President of the UN General Assembly that has been entrusted recommended measures to deal with the economic crisis that is affecting the whole world. At a press conference held at the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Headquarters in Geneva, Mr. Stiglitz said that States needed to mobilize all possible funds to overcome the crisis.
Le Temps (Switzerland) - 12 March 2009