IDEA - WPP - Women Empowerment!

FAWE Engagement with Journalists and Editors to set the Agenda of Women in Political Participation

OAseno — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 12:23:32 +0000

FAWE Engagement with Journalists and Editors to set the Agenda of Women in Political Participation OAseno Thu, 10/26/2023 - 14:23

FAWE Engagement with Journalists and Editors to set the Agenda of Women in Political Participation

OAseno — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 12:23:32 +0000

FAWE Engagement with Journalists and Editors to set the Agenda of Women in Political Participation OAseno Thu, 10/26/2023 - 14:23

Mr

hwalima — Wed, 06 Sep 2023 12:18:41 +0000

Mr hwalima Wed, 09/06/2023 - 14:18

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Sikhulile

Communications Officer

61 3 8376 628

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hwalima@outlook.com

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Communications Officer

hwalima — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 07:57:32 +0000

Communications Officer hwalima Fri, 09/01/2023 - 09:57

abc

Olive Aseno

Communications Officer

ABC

Mr

OAseno — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 07:35:22 +0000

Mr OAseno Fri, 09/01/2023 - 09:35

Michael is the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer for the Enhancing Women’s Political Participation in Africa programme running in Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Prior to Joining International IDEA, Michael worked as an Associate Consultant with Move of Afrika and was an M&E Officer for the Forum for African Women Educationalists [FAWE}.

Michael brings in approximately 10 years’ experience in Research, Program Management and M&E with biasness to Human Centered Design, Participatory M&E, Theory of Change, Outcome Harvesting for Local, National and Regional programming. He speaks English and Swahili fluently and has basic knowledge of French.

Michael Onguss

Monitoring and Evaluation Officer

He holds bachelor's degree in environmental planning and management from Kenyatta University Kenya and currently, pursues Masters in Climate Change and Adaptation at University of Nairobi Kenya.

Mr Michael Onguss

OAseno — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 07:35:22 +0000

Mr Michael Onguss OAseno Fri, 09/01/2023 - 09:35

Michael Onguss is the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer for the Enhancing Women’s Political Participation in Africa programme running in Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Prior to Joining International IDEA, Michael worked as an Associate Consultant with Move of Afrika and was an M&E Officer for the Forum for African Women Educationalists [FAWE}.

Monitoring and Evaluation Officer

He holds bachelor's degree in environmental planning and management from Kenyatta University Kenya and currently, pursues Masters in Climate Change and Adaptation at University of Nairobi Kenya.

Mr

OAseno — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 07:35:22 +0000

Mr OAseno Fri, 09/01/2023 - 09:35

Michael Onguss

Monitoring and Evaluation Officer

He holds bachelor's degree in environmental planning and management from Kenyatta University Kenya and currently, pursues Masters in Climate Change and Adaptation at University of Nairobi Kenya.

Vacancy alert - Finance and Administrative Manager

sifiso — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 09:36:17 +0000

Vacancy alert - Finance and Administrative Manager sifiso Mon, 02/13/2023 - 11:36

International IDEA is hiring a Finance and Administrative Manager for the Women in Political Participation Project located in Nairobi, Kenya. See vacancy announcement here: https://lnkd.in/dTrq-KCf

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Call for Papers: Women in Politics (Closed)

yafika — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 15:16:49 +0000

Call for Papers: Women in Politics (Closed) yafika Fri, 12/18/2020 - 17:16

The struggle for women’s participation in public affairs and the political life of their countries as equal actors has been an enduring feature of the entire period since independence in Africa.

From being integral players in the mass mobilisation and campaigns, both civic and armed, that ushered the countries of the continent to independence, women were subsequently to be relegated to the margins of the state and nation-building efforts that were embarked upon by a succession of regimes soon after national political freedom from formal and direct colonial rule had been won. Across the continent, women and their concerns were consigned to a residual category in various aspects of national life on arguments that ranged from the outrightly outrageous, unedifying, and embarrassing to the patently ignorant, mischievous, and frivolous.

These arguments purported invariably to explain why women could not be entrusted with public responsibilities and roles as full and equal participants and citizens. They continue to be deployed even to this day, more than six decades after the first African country became independent and despite a massive campaign of awareness underwritten by women and their organizations. Though mostly packaged and justified on grounds of culture, tradition, and religion, the arguments in fact reflect and bear the hallmarks of an embedded patriarchy and the relations of power woven into it that have always instinctively privileged men over women in politics, the economy and society.

Over the years since independence, it has been the historic responsibility of women to exercise agency and organize themselves and others to try to contest and overcome marginalisation, discrimination, stigma and domination. They have done so to building local and global alliances and using a variety of strategies and tactics. Within individual countries, despite an unevenness of organizational capacity and results obtained, many have worked alone and together to mobilise opinion and action in order to push the case and leverage opportunities for better and greater voice, presence, and participation in the public domain and in decision-making. Through the various women’s organizations they created to press for change towards a more inclusive system of governance in which they are able and enabled to play an equal role, successes were registered in forcing open the door of patriarchy even if progress has remained slow and uneven within and across different countries. From spirited and sustained campaigns in support of the education of the girl-child and against such harmful “traditional” practices as female genital incision and breast pressing to intense advocacy for a greater gender diversity in public administration, the formal/organized private sector, and party politics, indefatigable struggles were waged to tame and overcome the worst forms of patriarchy.

As it pertains specifically to their political participation, the thrust of much of the struggles waged by successive generations of women over the years has been, in an incremental manner, first to overcome total exclusion and cynical tokenism and then strive towards winning a seat by right at the table of decision-making with full powers and on equal terms. Arguments deployed to justify locking women out of political participation, including the notion that the place of the “decent” woman is in the house—were confronted head on with counter-arguments demonstrating just how political the personal also is. The idea that women are only good for adding colour to and entertaining audiences at political rallies with dances or being lined up on election day to vote as directed by political barons was roundly challenged as was the resort by male political leaders to offering token appointments to women in a bid, mostly cynical, to satisfy appearances but not necessarily change anything in relation to the asymmetries of power that exclude and penalise women. As counterarguments, women’s rights activists lost no opportunity to note that the male domination of politics in Africa has fed political violence and instability and corruption and mismanagement, among many other ills that have plagued the continent since independence. Suggestions have been made frequently enough that women, if opportuned, might just do a much better job than the male politicians.

Campaigns for political reform and change waged domestically in various countries by women and their organizations were also extended to the regional and international levels using all available platforms and opportunities. Particularly significant in this regard were the platforms offered by the United Nations (UN) family of organizations, the African Union (AU) and the various African Regional Economic Communities. From the 1994 Cairo UN Population Conference to the 1995 Beijing Conference to the AU’s 2003 Maputo Conference and the 2008 SADC summit, decisions were adopted on these various platforms and occasions that boosted the campaign by women for greater and more equal political participation as much in local affairs as in continental and global affairs. The UN Millenium Development Goals and their successor Sustainable Development Goals were deliberately leveraged too to advance the local and global causes for women’s equality. Thus, it was that a spate of policy commitments and conventions came to be adopted and which, today, despite their limitations, serve as a useful framework for measuring and assessing progress within and among nations. Some of the targets set at the Beijing Conference and those included in such outcome documents as the AU’s Maputo Declaration and the SADC Gender Protocol have, thanks primarily to the efforts of women themselves, been refracted back into domestic political and policy processes and taken further, with success in some instances, towards a “50-50” and “Zebra” agenda for the equal participation of women. The gender equality aspirations of women, including their better representation in parliament, have also been written into the national constitutions of several countries and become embedded in the policy practices of the AU and the RECs.

There is no doubt that, today, Africa boasts a growing number of countries where the representation and participation of women in politics has registered significant progress, with Rwanda standing out as one of the very best performers on a global scale. Rwanda is not alone; Kenya, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa are among the countries that have also registered and even sustained major progress. However, despite the progress that has been made, few will doubt that much more remains to be done even as efforts need to continue to be invested to ensure that the progress registered is not reversed and the women who enter into decision-making institutions are empowered to play their role in full. It is here that this research project has been deemed necessary as a contribution to both achieving a better understanding of the dynamics of women’s political participation and contributing to its further deepening and advancement. The need for such a project is further underlined by the unspoken but widespread assumption that a huge proportion of women in political office function mostly as "flower girls", to use a Kenyan parlance, who merely serve "decorative" purposes in places such as parliament whilst religiously doing the bidding of the party, the political godfather, or the president.

The project aims, at a broad level, to undertake an assessment of the extent to which women who have gained a significant entry into institutions of power and decision-making have been effective in advocating and advancing the agenda of women’s equality in Africa. More specifically, the project seeks to:

Better understand the motivation and agendas that propel women who participate in politics and succeed in winning an entry into the mainstream of the political processes and institutions of their countries;
Examine the interfaces, if any, between the agendas of the women in politics and the specific goal of advancing the equality of women in society generally and political decision-making in particular;
Explore the dominant influences on women in active political positions that shape the choices which they make as actresses alongside other players in the governance system;
Assess the connections between the broader societal and citizen concerns articulated by the women in active political and decision-making and the advancement of the interests of women; and
Identify similarities and differences in the political engagements and gender equality agendas of directly elected and nominated female members of parliament with a view to drawing comparative observations about their performance.

Prospective participants in the project are invited to submit an abstract of not more than two pages clearly outlining the specific component of the objectives of the research they wish to engage with and how they intend to do so. Authors of abstracts accepted will be invited to develop full papers for further consideration. Preference will be given to abstracts and papers that are grounded in solid field work and backed with empirical data. Out of the papers, a book on the contemporary politics of women’s participation in Africa will be published and a set of policy recommendation will also be issued separately for use in further refining policies and campaigns.

DEADLINES:

Abstracts will be received up to 15 July 2020.
The draft papers of authors of shortlisted abstracts will be required by 30 September 2020.
Final revised papers for peer review and publication will be expected by 30 October 2020.

Our Projects

Raising the red flags on the Anniversary of UNSCR1325 & Commemoration of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence

yafika — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 08:25:52 +0000

Raising the red flags on the Anniversary of UNSCR1325 & Commemoration of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence yafika Fri, 12/18/2020 - 10:25

Lack of peace and security is one of the top barriers preventing women from participating in politics. Twenty years on, this webinar is set to take stock of the state of women in political participation in Africa and the contribution that UNSCR1325 has made to increase the number of women participating meaningfully in politics. A number of African countries such as Botswana, Malawi, Tanzania, Cote d’Ivoire, Seychelles held elections in 2019/20 and more are gearing up for elections in 2021. Politically motivated violence against women also linked to election processes have been rampant in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria, Malawi, Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Tanzania, Mali, Sudan and many other African states. The number of women in political distress has in particularly increased as the continent battles to contain the COVID-19 pandemic and where resources initially earmarked for peacekeeping have been diverted to the virus.

The year 2020 marks the 20th anniversary of the UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325, which established a powerful normative framework to ensure women’s needs, voices and perspectives to prevent, resolve and recover from conflict and build sustainable peace. With the adoption of this resolution, the UN Security Council acknowledged for the first time that efforts to build and maintain peace and security are more sustainable when women meaningfully participate and have influence in political and security decision-making processes, and when women and girls are safe from violence, in conflict and crises. This resolution set the groundwork for a series of nine additional resolutions on enhancing the roles, perspectives, and needs of women and women and girls in conflict and crises, and that addressing conflict-related sexual violence is a matter of international peace and security. The year 2020 is a time for celebration and an opportunity for reflection on how this global instrument has paved way for women to participate in politics in the African continent.

This year’s 16 Days of activism against gender based violence comes at a time when cases of gender based violence, in particular domestic violence have surged during the COVID-19 lockdown period. Women in politics have not been spared as they are harassed especially during election period. Elections in countries such as Tanzania, DRC and Uganda have been marred with violence.

Election and politically motivated violence has been a major reason for women to stay out of politics. In some countries political violence and abuse has seen women in and out of prison, subsequently disabling them to carry out their political mandates. Key examples coming from Uganda (Stella Nyazi), Zimbabwe (Joanna Mamombe), Sudan (women whole were at the forefront to oust Al Bashir’s regime) and Nigeria (women at the forefront of the #StopSARSNow protests). While women have borne the greatest burden of fighting for democracy, the rewards have been minimal in terms of women’s representation at all levels of governance. Adding onto this is the continuous persecution politically even for those who have managed to get into political office. There has been improvement in some instances in terms of women’s representation in parliament and speakers of parliament in some cases as shown in the paragraphs below.

The number of female speakers in both upper and lower houses of parliament on the continent totalled an encouraging 16 women out of 75 (21%) legislative bodies according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, The Gambia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Togo, Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Lesotho and Liberia. The region is now second only to Europe with seventeen female heads of parliament currently in office out of 70 legislative bodies. This stands in stark contrast with just eight female heads of parliament in Asia, and only one in the Middle East and North Africa.

Africa has been distinct in introducing proactive measures in favour of fast-tracking women’s participation in parliament. Currently, most African countries have at least one gender quota in place, including 13 countries that hold specifically reserved seats for women in parliament as opposed to legislated candidate or political party quotas. These reserved seats allow countries to hold high percentages of women members in parliament, such as Rwanda (61.25%), South Africa (46.35%), Senegal (41.82%), and Ethiopia (38.76%), and include more women and diverse perspectives in legislative decision-making.

These few successes in women’s representation in politics must not obscure the alarming levels of Election Violence Against Women (EVAW) and other politically motivated forms of abuse aimed at women politicians. Young women are also at great risks of such forms of violence with some being threatened with rape and profiled negatively by the media. The role of women under political distress to democracy building must be linked to regional, continental and global instruments that seek to preserve peace and promote gender equality. This year’s commemoration of UNSR1325 should be Africa’s reflection on the value of peace building and meaningful participation of women in politics. It is critical that Women’s political participation must not be a ‘ticking off the box’ process but a rights based approach to equality in politics and peace processes.

African countries need to move beyond just numbers and look at root causes that keep women out of politics. The deeply entrenched patriarchy in all of Africa often manifests itself in violence against women in politics and other spheres of life. There is need to uproot patriarchy through raising red flags of women in political distress. Similarly, governments must be able to hold each other accountable for these red flags through sub-regional processes and instruments. There is need for substantive female leadership to advocate for gender-equal policies and even increase cooperation across party and ethnic lines. Such gender policies help challenge discriminatory laws, increase responsiveness to social issues, and remove legal barriers to women’s access to services and economic opportunities. Laws do not change cultural norms, but they are a starting point for empowering women.

Objectives of the webinar

The main objectives of the webinar is to raise red flags of women politicians in political distress in Africa as the world commemorates the 20^th anniversary of UNSCR1325. The webinar will discuss the following:

The role of the state, media and political institutions in protecting women politicians from violence and abuse.
Examples from the ground that will feed onto the WPP Watch platform.
Women’s meaningful political participation in transition states
At the coalface evidence of women’s (including young women) political participation during peace building processes.
How the UNSCR1325 and commemoration of 16 days of activism will contribute towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals – in particular Goal 5 on equal participation in decision-making processes.

Outcomes of the webinar

The Women in Political Participation Watch platform will be strengthened through this webinar. The webinar will equip Women in Political Participation Consortium partners and other participants with insights of on-the ground evidence on the linkages between peace building and meaningful participation of women in politics. Specifically, the webinar will:

Profile women politicians and activists who have experienced or are experiencing persecution due to their role of being politicians.
Profile success stories on implementation of UNSCR1325 and contribution to women’s political participation.
Explore policy and legislative frameworks that contribute towards peace building processes and women’s meaningful participation in politics.
The role of men in promoting women’s political participation during peace building processes
It will highlight red flag areas in terms of peace building in Africa and lack of women’s participation in politics.
The webinar will explore avenues of young women’s political participation during implementation of UNSCR1325 National Action Plans and transitioning states.

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