Assessing political empowerment of women

Abstract

The paper argues that progress in the political empowerment of women has been slow. That 10 per cent of the members of legislative bodies were women in 1995 and the figure is only around 11 per cent in 1999. The commitments made in the Beijing Platform had two goals: To “take measures to ensure women’s access to and full participation in power structures and decision making” and to “increase women’s capacity to participate in decision-making and leadership.” Various actions were proposed achieving these goals including: governments should establish the goal of achieving gender balance; creating a critical mass of women leaders in strategic positions; that women should hold 50 per cent of managerial and decision-making posts by the year 2000; that political parties should integrate women in elective and non-elective positions; protecting and promoting women’s equal rights with men; removing discriminatory and prejudicial electoral systems; continuous monitoring and regularly evaluating progress.