International Women’s Day 2010

Rumbidzai A Kandawasvika-Nhundu, Senior Programme Officer (Democracy and Gender), International IDEA

International IDEA pays tribute to women of the world on International Women’s Day (8th March) with the theme this year being Travelling the road towards the empowerment and advancement of women. Despite the existence of government agreements and declarations to improve the empowerment and advancement of women, there is still a long journey ahead. Progress remains slow and uneven and a lot still remains to be done.

Women still hold less than 20 per cent of elected parliamentary seats globally; and in many parts of the world rape is not considered a crime: it goes unpunished and continues to be used as a weapon of war.

On this day, International IDEA’s message is that women’s empowerment and advancement is a radical public and private agenda, and the greatest gains that countries can achieve come with empowering women.

As a champion for democracy building International IDEA emphasizes the importance of women’s political participation and representation. This is grounded in the action agendas of the four world conferences on women, 1975 Mexico, 1980 Copenhagen, 1985 Nairobi, 1995 Beijing and CEDAW adopted in 1979 and signed or ratified by 182 states.

How does International IDEA pursue women’s empowerment and advancement?

Democracy and Gender

The increasing awareness of the subordinate status of women and the need to empower women is combined with the understanding of democracy and its intersection with gender¹.

Democracy is supposed to transform power relations between men and women by promoting the equal distribution of power and influence between women and men.

Two Interrelated Approaches

• Gender mainstreaming in democracy building to reinforce democracy and its intersection with gender by engaging both men and women in the democracy discourse on gender and promoting the equal distribution of power and influence between women and men in shaping sustainable democratic processes, institutions and outcomes.
• Women’s empowerment - ensures that building democracy is underpinned by measures to support the political empowerment of women, and a concerted focus on women’s political participation and representation.

Strategies

International IDEA supports the empowerment of women through a range of means:

• Capacity and knowledge development so that all aspects of the electoral and political process can be viewed from a gender perspective.
• Empowerment strategies for women in politics including positive measures such as quotas and setting up women’s parliamentary caucuses.
• Development and provision of knowledge resources and tools such as the Quotas database, www.quotaproject.org, iKNOW Politics on line resource tool and E-discussions.

The year 2010 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the Beijing World Conference on Women and this should bring renewed focus and energy to the efforts to empower women. This should be at the heart of the agenda of the UN Commission on the Status of Women this March 2010.

1 Gender refers to both women and men and to their status relative to each other. Gender is an overarching socio-cultural variable seen in relation to other factors such as race, class, age and ethnicity. The qualities, identities and behaviours expected from men and women are determined through the process of socialisation