International Women’s Day 2003 was celebrated in Jakarta at an event jointly organised by International IDEA and National Democratic Institute (NDI). The celebration, Challenges to Women’s Participation in Politics and Public Life provided opportunities for Indonesian MPs, political party members and civil society activists to share experiences and to promote women’s issues as an integral part of Indonesian political life.

The event provided an opportunity to present the findings of the regionalised Indonesian version of the handbook, Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers (Perempuan di Parlemen: Bukan Sekedar Jumlah) and International IDEA and Stockholm University’s new website on Quotas for Women was showed cased at the event.

The event was timely because the new general election and political party laws were being debated, and the event largely focused on the issue of electoral quotas. The expert panel consisted of case study authors of the in the Women in Parliament publication, Chusnul Maríyah, Francisia SEE Seda and Khofifah Indar Parawansa. They each presented their views on how to increase women’s participation in politics in Indonesia, and provided suggestions on how to encourage women to maintain their struggle towards a gender equal political environment.

The workshop was well attended with around 190 participants, including women and men, 25 regional participants, national and regional parliamentarians, political party members, civil society activists, academia, international organisations and media. IDEA member states were represented by Ambassador of South Africa and Ambassador of the Netherlands. The event was well covered by broadcast and print media.