Gender Partnership Group

In the light of the results of the Specialised Inter-Parliamentary Conference on the theme "Towards Partnership between Men and Women in Politics" (New Delhi, 14 -18 February 1997), the IPU decided that all its work should henceforth take into account more constantly and explicitly than in the past the need to act in a spirit of partnership between men and women which it defined as "a consolidating factor of democracy".

The Union established, within its Executive Committee, a Gender Partnership Group composed of two men and two women and entrusted with seeing to it that the interests and visions of both parts of the population are taken into account equally in all IPU's activities and decisions.

This Group reports twice a year to the IPU Council. It has immediately initiated consultations on the possibility of establishing a rule which would apply equally to all delegations failing to include at least one woman among their members, as required by IPU's Statutes. If accepted, the rule would decrease by two the number of votes to which such delegations would be entitled at the IPU Conference, where a system of weighted vote is applied.