Editorial: It's not all about the numbers

March 8, 2006 -(IDEA News) Michelle Bachelet in Chile. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in Liberia. Angela Merkel in Germany. Maria do Carmo Silveira in Sao Tome and Principe. Luisa Diogo in Mozambique. Tarja Halonen in Finland. Helen Clark in New Zealand. These presidents and prime ministers are not the first women to lead countries, but they share a trait with the world’s first democratically elected female president, Vigdis Finnbogadottir of Iceland: they were elected on their own merits.

Since its founding in 1995, International IDEA has understood that women’s participation in politics was, and remains, central to democratic governance. If established and new democracies are to be truly democratic, half of the world’s population cannot be excluded. Yet worldwide, only 16.3 percent of all parliamentarians are women, according to January 2006 statistics from the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Five years ago, it was 14 percent.

For years, IDEA focused on increasing women’s participation quantitatively to ensure women’s representation. The Institute’s activities regarding women in politics document the obstacles to women’s participation and suggest solutions, such as the use of quotas and changes in the electoral systems. The latest European Quota Report examines women’s political representation in Europe, and looks into the use of gender quotas as a measure for boosting women’s access to decision-making bodies.

IDEA’s latest handbook, the revised version of Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers, is looking at the qualitative aspect of women’s participation. It focuses on the impact female parliamentarians have had in politics, an area where little research had been conducted to date. And it is not all about numbers: while a critical mass of women is necessary to ensure women’s representation, the quality of the representation is just as important to avoid the trap of electing “token” women. With this in mind, IDEA provided training on campaigning skills for women running for the Peruvian Congress in the upcoming April general election and for female candidates to the second chamber of the Indonesian parliament, Dewan Perwakilan Daerah.

IDEA has learned that to overcome obstacles, women must network within their parties, at the multiparty level, and with women outside of parliament. In this vein, IDEA is launching a knowledge network for women in politics with the National Democratic Institute, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, the United Nations Development Programme, and the Inter- Parliamentary Union. This network, scheduled to begin March 2006, will act as a medium through which women can digitally reach out to each other for support, solidarity, expertise and critical research. The goal is to assist female politicians and aspirants by sharing information on issues such as deciding to run for election, developing campaign strategies and being an effective policy-maker.

On this International Women’s Day, IDEA pledges to continue working on ways for more women to win positions of power. Bearing in mind the handbook warning that “representation means more than elected politics – It means that more women …must be appointed to senior decision-making positions, and more women’s voices must be heard and included when major political reform or transformation is undertaken”, IDEA has started to implement what it preaches, on its own small scale. This year, the Institute is evaluating the usefulness of its gender awareness policy to examine women’s representation and participation among its staff. Women outnumber men at IDEA by nearly 2 to 1. Do they have more participation in key decisions than their male colleagues? Watch this column for the answer in a few months.

Vidar Helgesen
Secretary-General, International IDEA

From: http://www.idea.int/news/editorial_gender.cfm