Participation

For Maria Saifuddin Effendi, it began with a bar of chocolate. As a Pakistani, Maria's first experience of India was her Indian roommate at a South-Asia workshop: a roommate who greeted an irritable and jetlagged Maria with a warm smile and a bar of Cadburys' chocolate. The following year, a second workshop brought her to New Delhi, to another Indian roommate, another series of midnight conversations, and another set of Indian friends.

Women make up less than 10 percent of world leaders. Globally less than one in five members of parliament is a woman. The 30 percent critical mass mark for women's representation in parliament has been reached or exceeded in only 28 countries.

“Despite notable progress, gender inequality persists,” Rousseff, who became Brazil's first female president earlier this year, said at a high-level event held at the United Nations ahead of this week's UN General Assembly.

Boosting women's political participation and decision-making around the world is fundamental for democracy and essential for achieving sustainable development, women leaders taking part in a high-level event at the United Nations declared today.

The executive summary of the World Bank's world development report (WDR) on gender trots out one of the organisation's most familiar refrains: "Gender is smart economics." This is both misleading and unfortunate, because the data included in the report is much more nuanced. At times, it even questions the bank's usual argument that economic growth leads to gender equality and gender equality leads to growth.

Just over a decade into the 21st century, women's progress can be seen—and celebrated—across a range of fields. They hold the highest political offices from Thailand to Brazil, Costa Rica to Australia. A woman holds the top spot at the International Monetary Fund; another won the Nobel Prize in economics.

When you became secretary of state, you said your mission was to improve the quality of life for the world's women. Three years later, what's your assessment of the progress made so far? No society can thrive when half its people are left behind. We have seen what a difference it makes when women have access to education and health care, when they are free to start their own businesses or make their own decisions.

Statistics shows the status of women is better than last couple of years in Pakistan. The situation could more satisfactory if the policies formulated by the parliamentarians for women folk in the past. This was stated by the speakers at a workshop organized by the Individual-land in collaboration with USAID and Aurat Foundation titled "Gender equality and equity" here at local hotel on Saturday.

Several hundred Palestinian and Israeli women demonstrated on Saturday on each side of Israel's Qalandiya checkpoint, the main passage point between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Assembling nearly a week ahead of a Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations Security Council, the women all gathered under the slogan "Women want an independent Palestine".

We all know that women and girls living in areas of armed conflict and disaster suffer the worst consequences of crises due to their heightened vulnerability. We also know dozens of initiatives, conferences, reports, and guidelines have been elaborated with the aim of mainstreaming gender-sensitive approaches in responses to humanitarian crises.