Participation

With the three administrations of Governor D.S.P Alameiseigha, Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan and Chief Timipre Sylva, many Bayelsa women and youths seems to have continued to count their blessings in terms of mobilisation, empowerment and political development.

A record number of over 100 newly-trained women police officers, making up two-thirds of the cadets completing the training for the Liberia National Police (LNP), prompted a senior United Nations official to hail the progress made since the first batch of recruits passed through the gates of the National Police Training Academy in 2005.

Two female parliamen- tarians in Ghana reflect on how much harder it is for women to win political campaigns than be appointed to office. Money, inexperience and social bias can all stand in the way.

Lack of confidence, minimum grasp of universal social etiquette and lack of access to credible role models for the Nigerian female folks are reasons why Nigerian women have not prospered in politics, C&M Training, a Nigerian group in the Diaspora with headquarters in London has said.

The arrival of women at top positions in Ghana's government and security forces has highlighted the question of whether such milestones will translate into concrete benefits in women's lives.

For many, the greatest boost not only for women but for all Ghanaians would come from empowering women economically.

Improving the status and effectiveness of women, whose numbers have risen steadily in the past decade, in the police force of the Côte d'Ivoire is the subject of a new training course organized by the United Nations mission known as UNOCI in the West African country.

In the midst of a women's human rights mission to Honduras, August 17-21, Carrie Wilson of JASS interviewed Lidize, a young Honduran member of Feminists in Resistance. This alliance of feminists and women's organizations is actively resisting the coup of June 28 and demanding a return to democratic institutions.

In Kailahun, Sierra Leone, the poorest region in the world's poorest country, women are trying to effect change on the issues that matter to them – maternal mortality, girls' education, teenage pregnancy, literacy rates for women – by entering political office.

For three days and nights 28-year-old Comfort Wilson rode in the back of a pickup truck from her rural village in Liberia to the capital, Monrovia. She came with 30 women from her village sleeping in the truck bed, eating food they prepared at home.