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Mark Your Calendar! Development Goals (Mdgs) Arab African Advisers Restructure your future Governance Observer Monthly newsletter that brings in best practice on governance with a focus on Arab and African countries experiences Vol. 1, Issue 10, March 2014 In this issue Gender Equality Gender equality and women‟s empowerment are human rights that are Page 1 - Gender Equality critical to sustainable development and achieving the Millennium - Mark Your Calendar! Development Goals (MDGs). Despite progress in recent years, women and girls account for six out of 10 of the world‟s poorest and two thirds of the Page 2 - Legislative Updates world‟s illiterate people. Only 19 percent of the world‟s parliamentarians are - Facts & Figures women and one third of all women are subjected to violence whether in times of armed conflict or behind closed doors at home. This is why UNDP Page 3 - Rwanda: A Revolution in integrates gender equality and women‟s empowerment into its four focus Rights for Women areas: poverty reduction, democratic governance, crisis prevention and - Women Empowerment: recovery, and environment and sustainable development… Union for the Mediterranean Conference When women and men have equal opportunities and rights, economic Held to Determine Priority growth accelerates and poverty rates drop more rapidly for everyone. Projects Reducing inequalities between women and men is critical to cutting in half Page 4 - Regulatory Policy and the number of people living in absolute poverty by 2015... Behavioural Economics The world‟s poorest and most vulnerable people are dependent on their Page 5 - Tender Opportunities natural environment to earn a living and feed their families. When natural Page 6 - Gender Equality at the resources are depleted, or the impacts of climate change hit, poor women Heart of Africa‟s use knowledge of the environment to survive and adapt, know-how that Transformation: A Vision should be harnessed to shape inclusive national environmental policies… and a Strategy continued on Page 5 Mark Your Calendar! “Gender Equality and the Global Jobs Challenge: 6th Annual Women's Empowerment Principles (WEP) Event”, 5-6 March 2014, United Nations Headquarters, New York City, US. “OECD Integrity Week 2014”: OECD, 17-21 March 2014, Paris, France. Vol. 1, Issue 10, March 2014 Legislative Updates Libya votes to make sharia law "serial offenders" and where a and non-agricultural workers in basis of all legislation minor is involved. Life Madagascar. The wage takes into imprisonment replaced death account the minimum living Libya‟s national assembly voted penalty originally proposed in wage, i.e. a wage that gives in December 2013 in favor of 2009. The Law also decrees workers a sufficient purchasing making sharia law the source of years in prison for anyone who power. The Decree sets the all legislation in the county. This counsels or reaches out to minimum wage on sector basis. will necessitate review of all laws homosexuals. However, the bill For lowest grade (M1) minimum and regulations (including was blocked by the president, wage has been set at 108019 banking, criminal and financial who refused to sign it, as he Ariary per month for non- regulations) by a special argued that the government was agricultural workers and at committee to make sure they are not given enough time to study 109520 Ariary per month for compliant with Islamic sharia the law and there are other ways agricultural workers. Minimum law. to deal with “abnormal” people. wages are set in Madagascar after Uganda: Anti-gay Bill consulting the National Labour Madagascar: Minimum Wage Council and they are revised Uganda‟s parliament passed a Decree No. 2013-476 periodically according to the bill, in December 2013, which country‟s balance sheet, the punishes homosexuals with life Decree No. 2013-476, issued on economic situation and consumer imprisonment in some cases. 3 July and in force retroactively price index (according to Article Such offences include where one since 1 March 2013, set the 55 of the Labor Code). person is infected with HIV, minimum wage for agricultural Facts & Figures - Despite the disproportionate magnitude and scope of gender- impact of conflict on women, based disparities in 4 areas, fewer than 3% signatories to namely: economic, political, peace agreements are women. education and health. - Women perform 66% of the - In Tunisia, women are entitled are illiterate while 1 in 6 world‟s work, produce 50% of to 30 days maternity leave at Lebanese women are illiterate. the food, but earn only 10% of 67% of full wages. - 53% of girls finish primary the income and own only one - Only 17% of women in school in Yemen. percent of the property. Palestinian Territories are - Although Africa is rising at a - Only 19% of national employed despite a literacy rate predicted 6% growth in 2014, parliamentarians are female. of 93%. the United Nations - Iceland topped the annual - 69% of women in Mauritania Development Programme Gender Gap Index 2013 are victims of FGM, while the (UNDP) has reported a 61% (developed by the World percentage is as high as 91%, loss in development due to Economic Forum) out of 134 93% and 98% in Egypt, Djibouti gender inequality. countries, while Yemen came & Somalia respectively. - Only 20% of women in Africa last. The Index captures the - 34% of adult women in Egypt have bank accounts. 2 Vol. 1, Issue 10, March 2014 Rwanda: A Revolution in Rights for Women With women making up 56% of MPs in the Rwandan parliament life is changing fast for women. What is happening for women in Rwanda is little short of revolutionary. Women occupy some of the most important government ministries and make up 56% of the country's parliamentarians, including the speaker. Rwanda's women express astonishment at Britain's low strength, enthusiasm and skill. female representation. By law in their country they must “In modern times they are happy. We see fathers have at least 30% of the seats in government, including encouraging their daughters to do engineering and get out local government. of nursing. We have quite a number in the army and police And it is not window dressing. “There used to be a lot of force,” added Kantengwa. rapes, wife beating, male domination of women, boys sent There are still issues. "Domestic violence is still prevalent – to school and not girls,” said Daphrose Nyirasafali, when [women] get more money than the man, there is that national programme officer for UNFPA, the UN's family threat. And the majority of women who go into politics planning and reproductive health organisation. “That has early don't get married – very few men make passes at all changed, even in the countryside.” them. But we have made great strides." Women now have the right to own land and property. Louise Mushikiwabo, Rwanda's foreign minister, said no When they marry they can choose to pool their assets with one should imagine Rwanda's women parliamentarians their husband or they can keep them separate. were a sign of “window dressing”. There are eight women The divorce rate is increasing as a consequence of these ministers. “We have a lot of influence,” Mushikiwabo said. changes. Inheritance laws have been passed so that a “The president is present most of the time in our cabinet man's property is split equally between his wife and both meetings. He encourages us to think out of the box and female and male children. initiate policy. It's a very open forum. That's where all the major decisions for the country are made.” Rape has been acknowledged as a very serious offence; there is a free police hotline and there are heavy jail Rwanda's progress on women is admired elsewhere. This sentences for perpetrators. Contraception has been made month the government convened an international forum on widely available. Women who want to stop having babies the role of leadership in gender equality and woman's but whose husbands object are told it is their right to empowerment, attracting women ministers, MPs and choose. Some attend clinics in secret for three-monthly dignitaries from all over Africa and beyond, including the injections. Tanzanian UN deputy secretary general, Asha-Rose Migiro. “I salute you for bringing gender and equality to Traditionally in Rwanda men and women had different the heart of the political process,” she told the forum in the roles, and separate domains, said Juliana Kantengwa, who Rwandan parliament. trained as a vet, in exile in Uganda, and who is now a member of Rwanda's senate. “There were no-go areas, like (Boseley, Sarah, “Rwanda: A Revolution in Rights for Women,” drumming,” she said. That was a male preserve. During The Guardian, Friday 28 May 2010, available at: opening ceremonies, teams of girls now drum with http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/28/womens-rights-rwanda) Women Empowerment: Union for the Mediterranean Conference Held to Determine Priority Projects The Union for the Mediterranean organizes a conference to guide projects on 26-27 March 2014 at its headquarters in Barcelona entitled “Empowerment of Women Socially and Economically: Projects for Progress” in order to promote the implementation of projects and initiatives in this area. The two-day international conference, which involves several stakeholders, will bring together about 200 participants from governments, international development agencies, and international organizations that deal with issues of women empowerment and gender equity, and the private sector and civil society, as well as promoters of existing and potential future projects of the Union for the Mediterranean. The conference seeks to: identify initiatives and priority programs in the field of social and economic empowerment of women in the Euro-Mediterranean region; help develop greater synergy and coherence among the major stakeholders in the Euro-Mediterranean region and to provide institutional and financial support for specific projects that seek to promote empowerment of women; and encourage the submission of proposals for projects with a regional dimension to the secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean.
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