VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND DIPLOMACY DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
IBORO OKON UDO International Practices Empowering Women Political Participation
Tarptautinė praktika, suteikianti moterims politinį dalyvavimą
Master Thesis
Diplomacy and International Relations, State Code 621L20004 Political Science Study Field
Supervisor Dr. Ieva Karpavičiūtė
Defended prof. dr. Šarūnas Liekis______
Kaunas, 2019
CONFIRMATION OF STUDENT WORK AUTHENCITY
I Iboro Udo hereby confirm that my submitted Master’s Thesis with the topic International Practices Empowering Women Political Participation is done independently by me, all references from the works of other authors are properly cited and the full literature list is provided at the end of the paper.
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CONTENTS
ACRONYMS ...... 4
LIST OF FIGURES ...... 5
LIST OF TABLES ...... 5
SUMMARY ...... 6
SANTRAUKA ...... 7
INTRODUCTION ...... 8
1. CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL EXPLORATIONS OF GENDER AND POLITICAL DISCOURSE AND VIEWS FROM THE THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ...... 16
1.1. The overview of International Relations Theories ...... 16 1.1.1. Feminists Approach in International Relations ...... 16 1.1.2. Institutionalists Approach in International Relations ...... 19 1.2. Gender in International Relations ...... 22 1.2.1. Factors affecting women participation in political activities...... 23 1.2.2. Gender and the Glass Ceiling Issues ...... 24 1.2.3. Examining the political participation of women ...... 27 2. THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS: EMPOWERING WOMEN POLITICAL PARTICIPATION THROUGH VARIOUS PRACTICES ...... 30
2.1. The UN and its Role in the Empowerment of Women Participation in Politics ...... 30 2.1.1. The role and practices of USAID in International Relations to empower women in political participation ...... 32 2.2. Diplomatic encounter between International Organisations and Countries to empower women and curb Gender Inequality ...... 40 2.2.1. International Organizations (the UN and USAID) and Women Political Empowerment in Lithuania ...... 41 2.2.2. International Organizations (the UN and USAID) and Women Political Empowerment in Nigeria ...... 45 2.2.3. The major Challenges faced by IOs (and other donor institutions) in their practices to empower women in political participation in Lithuania and Nigeria ...... 48 3. EMPIRICAL STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS (UN AND USAID) PRACTICES AND THE PROSPECT TO INCREASE WOMEN’S POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN LITHUANIA AND NIGERIA ...... 51
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3.1. Analysis of Strategic Documents of UN and USAID ...... 51 3.1.1. United Nations (entity for gender equality and women’s empowerment) Annual Reports 51 3.1.2. USAID – Summary Report of the WiP Project ...... 56 3.2. Analysis of the prospect to increase Women’s Political Participation in Lithuania and Nigeria ...... 57 3.2.1. Analysis of Speeches made by presidents of Lithuania and Nigeria during the UNGA world leaders general debates ...... 57 3.2.2. The methodology of speeches analysis ...... 59 3.2.3. Survey Analysis ...... 60 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ...... 69
CONCLUSIONS ...... 71
RECOMMENDATIONS ...... 74
REFERENCES ...... 75
ANNEXES ...... 80
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ACRONYMS ACWF – All China Women’s Federation CEDPA – Centre for Development and Population Activities CIS – Commonwealth of Independent States DLM – Diamond Leadership Model DRG CENTRE – The centre of excellence on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance EIGE – European Institute for Gender Equality FGM – Female Genital Mutilation HI – Historical Institutionalism ICRW – International Centre for Research on Women IFES – International Foundation for Electoral Systems ILO – International Labour Organization IPU – Inter-Parliamentary Union IRI – International Research Institute NDI – National Democratic Institute for International Affairs NGOs – Non Governmental Institutions OECD – Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OSCE – Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe PRADAN – Professional Assistance for Development Action PROWID – Promoting Women in Development SMWF – Sirleaf’s Markets Women Fund UN – United Nations UN Women – United Nations Women UNDP – United Nations Development Programme UNGA – United Nations General Assembly USAID – United States Agency for International Development WIG – Women in Government WiP – Women in Power WPL – Women Political Leaders
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LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Share of elective offices held by the U.S. Women ...... 27 Figure 2: Factors influencing the Supply and Demand-side of increased women political presence which requires transformation ...... 35 Figure 3: The Diamond Leadership Model (DLM) ...... 37 Figure 4: Share of seats held by Afghan women in the national parliament ...... 39 Figure 5: Global Share of Men and Women in Political Positions (in %) ...... 42 Figure 6: Respondents’ Gender (from survey) ...... 61 Figure 7: Respondents’ age ...... 62 Figure 8: Respondents’ occupation ...... 62 Figure 9: Rate of respondents interested in politics ...... 63 Figure 10: Respondents’ response on whether or not gender matter in politics ...... 64 Figures 11a & 11b: Women and Men opinions on political participation ...... 65 Figure 12: Respondents’ opinion regarding areas of women empowerment ...... 65 Figure 13: Do women have the right to advocate for equal seats in the Parliament? ...... 66 Figure 14: The rate of respondents’ satisfaction with the world’s leadership system ...... 67
LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Women in Parliament in the Republic of Lithuania and World Rank between 2000 and 2016 ...... 42 Table 2: The number of women per 1000 men in Lithuania ...... 43 Table 3: Women in both the Lower and Upper House of the National Assembly in Nigeria and World Rank between 1999 and 2015 (a period of 5 terms) ...... 45 Table 4: Nigerian Women in other top political positions in the country ...... 46 Table 5: The current population of Nigeria and the percentage of men and women ...... 46 Table 6a & b: World and regional averages of Women in National Parliament ...... 48 Table 7: Breakdown of UN Women Fund for Gender Equality and Women Empowerment 2010 - 2017 ...... 54 Table 8: Analysing the speeches of the Presidents of the Republic of Lithuania and the Federal Republic of Nigeria during 10 consecutive sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations ...... 58
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SUMMARY Political empowerment of women starts with understanding the political and economic context in which they operate, as well as rigorous gender analysis,1 and it requires a comprehensive approach to programming that looks beyond the legislature. The aim of women political empowerment is more than just having women in elective or appointive positions, or attaining at least 30% presence of women in the national legislative – these are but a part of it; the ultimate goal of women political empowerment is focused on women’s effort to make their voices heard (USAID, Women in Power Project Summary Report). This thesis was conducted to examine the various practices implemented by IOs to empower women in political participation. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected for the study carried out in this thesis and content analysis was employed. This Master Thesis covers four section split as follows;
First section renders insight to the theoretical concept of women’s political participation, encompassing the study of international relations theory such as the feminist theory and institutionalist theory and how these theories explain the topic of gender, women and political participation, and the role of institutions in combating the problem of gender inequality in order to bridge the gender gap in our contemporary society through women empowerment and the review of past literatures. The second section addresses the impacts made by International Organizations (UN and USAID) to empower women through various programmes, and projects in Nigeria and Lithuania, the third section provides information about the empirical analysis of IOs and case study countries – Lithuania and Nigeria. The final section presents the findings and discussion of empirical study; followed by the conclusions and recommendations.
This main findings of the thesis posits that, despite the numerous practices of IOs and even though both countries examined here continuously address the issue of women empowerment – politically, economically and socially as well as express their concern about gender equality, women’s political under-representation persists. However, it is also found that a continued, persistent and practical actions by IOs, the government as well as individuals is believed to yield a positive shift in women’s political participation in the future.
Keywords: International Organizations, Women Empowerment, Feminism, Gender Equality, Institutionalism, Political Participation.
1 Melanie M. Hughes, Darcy Ashman and Milad Pournik (2016) – Women in Power Project Summary Report, prepared for review by the USAID. 6
SANTRAUKA Politinis moterų įgalinimas prasideda nuo politinio ir ekonominio konteksto, kuriame jie veikia, supratimo, taip pat griežta lyčių analizė, todėl reikia visapusiško požiūrio į programavimą, kuris apimtų ne tik įstatymų leidybos instituciją. Moterų politinio įgalinimo tikslas yra ne tik moterys pasirenkamosiose ar paskyrimo pareigose, ar ne mažiau kaip 30 proc. Moterų dalyvavimas nacionaliniuose teisės aktuose - tai tik jos dalis; galutinis moterų politinio įgalinimo tikslas yra sutelkti dėmesį į moterų pastangas, kad jų balsas būtų išgirstas (USAID, Moterys galios projekto suvestinėje ataskaitoje). Šis darbas buvo atliktas siekiant ištirti įvairias IO įgyvendintas praktikas, suteikiančias moterims galimybę dalyvauti politinėje veikloje. Šiame darbe surinkti ir kokybiniai, ir kiekybiniai duomenys, o turinio analizė buvo panaudota. Šis magistro darbas apima keturias dalis, suskirstytas taip:
Pirmajame skyriuje apžvelgiama teorinė moterų politinio dalyvavimo koncepcija, apimanti tarptautinių santykių teorijos, pavyzdžiui, feministinės teorijos ir institucionalistinės teorijos, tyrimą ir tai, kaip šios teorijos paaiškina lyčių, moterų ir politinio dalyvavimo temą bei institucijų vaidmenį kovojant su lyčių nelygybės problema siekiant panaikinti lyčių atotrūkį mūsų šiuolaikinėje visuomenėje suteikiant moterims daugiau galių ir peržiūrint praeities literatūrą. Antrajame skyriuje aptariamas tarptautinių organizacijų (JT ir JAV) poveikis moterims suteikiant įvairias programas ir projektai Nigerijoje ir Lietuvoje, trečiajame skyriuje pateikiama informacija apie empirinę IO ir atvejų tyrimo šalių - Lietuvos ir Nigerijos - analizę. Paskutiniame skyriuje pateikiami empirinio tyrimo rezultatai ir aptarimas; išvadas ir rekomendacijas.
Šios pagrindinės darbo išvados rodo, kad, nepaisant daugelio IO praktikos, ir nors abi čia nagrinėtos šalys nuolat sprendžia moterų teisių suteikimo klausimą - politiniu, ekonominiu ir socialiniu požiūriu, taip pat išreiškia susirūpinimą dėl lyčių lygybės, moterų politinis nepakankamas atstovavimas išlieka. Tačiau taip pat nustatyta, kad nuolatiniai, nuolatiniai ir praktiniai IO, vyriausybės ir asmenų veiksmai, manoma, suteiks teigiamą politinį moterų dalyvavimą ateityje.
Raktažodžiai: tarptautinės organizacijos, moterų įgalinimas, feminizmas, lyčių lygybė, institucionalizmas, politinis dalyvavimas.
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INTRODUCTION In the world today, women are under-represented in the political sphere in majority of the countries globally in comparison to men. A study revealed that women poor participation in politics and governance poses a major concern at the global level2. The problem of women’s under-representation has however been attributed to two main factors which include – the problem of supply and issues of party demand (article from the political studies association, 2017). The previous is centred around the topic of who chooses to keep running for office; in other words, it is trusted that there are less female candidates trying to hold a political profession – i.e. women are more averse to keep running for political offices than men. The last then again proposes parties interest for the competitors they need, at the end of the day, these parties discriminate against specific kinds of aspirants they need for an office.
In British parliament however, many researches have demonstrated to a large extent that party demand strongly determines the participation of women in politics than the issue of supply. It is therefore believed that women are not the problem but rather parties are. According to research, there is for instance evidence of gender bias in British political parties, there are widespread evidences of direct and indirect discrimination by party selectors towards women candidates. Most of the reasons for such discrimination are centred on what is supposed to be known as the traditional role of women in a society as well as explicit sexual harassment. Ugwuegede Patience (2014) highlighted some challenges leading to women not being actively participated in politics which include: discriminatory socio-cultural and religious practices; lack of finance; under-representation of women in governance; political party discrimination; unhealthy political environment; lack of fellow women and media support among other numerous challenges.
The National Democratic Institute (NDI) also identifies similar issues as barriers to women political participation. The NDI categorise these barriers into three: the three categories include the individual – where women who are as qualified as men talk themselves out of running for office; institutional level – where political bodies such as parties and legislature do not welcome their female colleagues; and socio-cultural level – where the media set their focus basically on the outward appearance of women – the way they dress, their marital status as well as their voices in opposition to their policy positions. The right of women to participate in political process is guaranteed by numerous international conventions, however, it requires hard work to transform that right into a reality.3 Women political empowerment is often seen as a practical move to ensuring that women secure a seat in political parties and belong make her voice heard as party leaders as well as candidates. Women’s inclusion and their participation in politics are the rudiments for democratic development and thus, contributes to good governance – to have good democratic governance
2Ugwuegede Patience Nwabunkeonye (2014) “Challenges to Women Active Participation in Politics in Nigeria” Sociology and Anthropology 2(7): 284 – 290, 2014. 3 Empowering Women for Stronger Political Parties – A guidebook to promote women’s political participation. 8 requires creating and sustaining an environment of inclusive and responsive political processes as well as promoting women’s political empowerment.4
Considering the rate of progress of women political participation, The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs posited that political parity will not be reached until 2080, hence, equality in politics becomes the highest hurdle women face.” Nevertheless, some countries are making efforts to elect women to be the heads of state and government – however, this happens in just a few countries such as Rwanda with over 61% of women in the parliament and Bolivia with more than 53% of women in the parliament. Research has proofed that the global participation rate of women in politics is approximately 20%, although patriarchy still remains a strong theme in mainstream media. It is however believed that a government with women actively participating in the political sphere is better off than the government which is governed by men alone – in other words, women’s representation in local governments can make a difference5. For instance, a research in Indian local councils (panchayats) shows that the number of drinking water projects in areas with women-led councils was 62% higher than those with men-led councils. This research paper will therefore focus on investigating the rate of participation of women in political activities and what the international bodies are doing in order to address the issue and create a platform for women inclusion in politics and other leadership roles.
Relevance of the Research: This thesis is focused on the issue of women political participation in the framework of International Relations discipline and especially on what the international bodies (the UN and the USAID) are doing in order to improve the current status of women inclusion in political activities. The thesis will also lay emphasis on the diplomatic ties between two case countries (Nigeria and Lithuania) and the IOs (UN and USAID) in collaborating to empower and promote the participation of women in political activities. The UN and USAID are chosen for this study because of their roles in the world. The UN for instance has a multipurpose function with the aim of creating a peaceful, safe and equal society as well as promoting human rights.6 The UN do not only focus on doing the aforementioned, but also is keened about achieving a just society and one main area is the pursuit to end gender inequality by promoting the rights of women through various empowerment practices. Just like the UN, the USAID is focused on rendering assistance to foreign countries to promote global health, support global stability, provide humanitarian assistance, catalyse innovation and partnership as well as empower women and girls.7 The USAID core activity is also to ensure that the countries of the world experience a peaceful, safe and live in an equal environment. Through numerous programs, the USAID has worked effortlessly to promote the rights of
4 Empowering Women for Stronger Political Parties – A guidebook to promote women’s political participation. UNDP and NDI. 5The UN Women “Facts and figures: Leadership and Political Participation” http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/leadership- and-political-participation/facts-and-figures, 30/10/2017 6 Karen Mingst et. al. United Nations: International Organization. 7 USAID (From the American People). https://www.usaid.gov/who-we-are 9 women and empower them to be active in social, economic and political activities. These and several other reasons make these two organizations significant for this study. Hence, the study will serve as a source of referencing for future research because empowering women will contribute positively to the society locally, regionally as well as globally. Studies indicate that women have the capacity to manage natural resources and are seen as powerful agents of change.8 It is also believed that women have been and can remain fundamental actors in pathways to sustainability and green transformation.
Research Problem: The perception that women all over the world are being unfairly treated when it comes to the issue of politics is alarming. According to feminists’ point of view, women are not seen to be actively participating in politics – hence the system of patriarchy – where only the men are mostly seen in political and other leadership positions dominates our world today. Scholars are underscoring the concern on the rate of women participating in politics and the prevalent gender gap. Numerous movements have been carried out by women over the past two decades to end gender inequality, however, there has been little or no change in the status of women in the society, and hence the need for other forms of movement for women. International organizations have therefore been playing a great role in the fight to end gender inequality through different practices such as empowering women in different sectors – women economic empowerment, political empowerment, social empowerment etc. To create inclusion for women in political arena, they (women) need to be empowered in all sectors. Therefore, it is expedient for International Organizations and other organizations to stand up and support the cause to attaining women’s political inclusion, and put an end to gender inequality.
Cases:
This Master Thesis will employ two cases to analyse – Lithuania and Nigeria. These two cases are chosen because of their distinctive features, yet the level at which each country is in terms of women in politics and decision making positions. The aim is to understand how women are empowered in both countries as well as the impact of these empowerment programmes on women.
Research Questions:
The following research questions will be addressed in this study:
1. How do international organizations manage to respond to issues of empowerment of women political participation at the international and national levels? 2. What are the major challenges international organizations face while addressing the issues of women political participation?
8 Jenny Hawley (2016). Why women’s empowerment is essential for sustainable development. https://www.iied.org/why- womens-empowerment-essential-for-sustainable-development 10
3. Are there any improvements over the past decade in the political participation of women in Lithuania and Nigeria? 4. Can Women Political Empowerment help end gender inequality in the future?
Aim of Research: The aim of the thesis is to investigate the international practices of the UN and USAID in the area of women political participation and examine the perspective of International Relations theories (International Institutionalism and Feminism) with regards to this discourse and to illustrate it be the cases of Lithuania and Nigeria.
Object of Research: The object of this research is international practices empowering women political participation.
Research Objectives: The research objectives include:
1. To discuss the conceptual and theoretical issues central to this discourse as well as analyse the theory of IR which contains gender-based arguments.
2. To overview Feminist and Institutionalist perspectives of International Relations vis-à-vis gender empowerment
3. To evaluate the International Organizations (IOs) [the UN and USAID] practices and their impact on empowering women political participation.
4. To analyse the perspectives of the IOs on how to create an inclusive society where women are allowed to participate actively in politics and other leadership roles.
5. To analyse the diplomatic encounters between selected two countries (Nigeria and Lithuania) and the international organizations (UN and USAID) on how to empower women and create inclusion for them in political domains.
6. To evaluate the current level of women political participation and analyse the rate and number of women in both elective and appointive positions.
7. To present possible proposals to contribute that would empowerment of women in political participation.
Literature: The following are the core literatures reviewed for this study:
• Julie Ballington (2012) and other contributors (Randi Davis, Mireya Reith, Lincoln Mitchel, Carol Njoki, Alyson Kozma & Elizabeth Powley): Ballington and the above listed contributing authors work together to produce this handbook for the United Nations Development Programme and National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. The aim of this handbook is to promote
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women’s political participation through implementing various empowerment programmes. The main concern of authors in this guidebook is centred on gender equality, the strategies employed in recruiting candidates and financing parties and campaigns as well as the aftermath of elections, testing whether the government is gender responsive or not. The idea embedded in this handbook encapsulate the whole idea of the study carried out in this thesis. • Emilie Combaz (2016). Donor Interventions on women’s political empowerment: This handbook is a vital part of this study, as the author’s aim of producing this piece was to assess how effective the interventions from donor institutions is on women empowerment for political participation. The author points out some arguments made about donor interventions and how these arguments do not provide sufficient insights into how donors operate. The author went further to evaluate the types of interventions provided by donors which are mainly based on funding, policy work and programmes. • A Handbook on Promoting Women’s Participation in Political Parties, produced by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). This handbook is used as a tool for training to motivate political parties and leaders to make sure that the procedures and practices of internal parties support the equal participation of both women and men in democratic governance processes, to the benefit of participating states across the OSCE region (Michael Georg Link, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic and Human Rights). The handbook lay emphasis on why all participating states of OSCE should recognize equality between men and women to be the ultimate aspect of a just and democratic society. • Melanie Hughes, Darcy Ashman and Milad Pournik (2016). Women in Power Project Summary Report, produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. This handbook present a summary report of the various projects launched by the Centre of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance of the United States Agency for International Development. It emphasizes the need for equal participation of women in all facets of life, including politics.
All listed literatures are in one way or the other addressing the issue of gender inequality of which women under-representation in political process and other decision making process is a first-hand example, and thus the role of organizations/institutions as well as governments in combating this issue through women empowerment. These literatures therefore have one and same aim which is to promote women’s participation in politics and create inclusion for them (women) in decision-making processes. Hence, this study will study the practices of International organizations (UN and USAID) to empower women political participation – specifically looking at their presence in two different countries and the magnitude of the impacts they make/are making in these countries. Also, this study will measure the prospects of women participation in politics in the future looking at the selected countries (Lithuania and Nigeria). These countries are selected
12 due to their vast differences in population, yet in Lithuania (as small as it is in size) has a female president. Thus, it would be interesting to get to understand what is done differently and how the issue of gender inequality is being tackled in each country.
Limitations of Master Thesis: This thesis is limited by certain factors such as:
i. The nature of the society promotes more of male domination, and this has and could pose more serious problems to the enforcement of the recommended actions in this study. ii. Very few countries can boast of women engaging actively in politics; in Africa for instance, only Rwanda and Ethiopia have a reasonable amount of women in power/decision making position. In a country like Nigeria, women are not given a sufficient amount of support when addressing the topic of politics; thus, these countries which do not find women suitable for these positions might as well not consider addressing the issue of women political participation and empowerment practices. iii. Finally, in our world today, the topic of gender equality has become very controversial and so many scholars have tried addressing this issue, however, there are numerous views and interpretations to this topic, which has caused even more rage in some societies.
Research Methodology: This thesis examines the International Practices Empowering Women Political Participation, with the aim of analysing the situation in two distinct cases of Lithuania and Nigeria. The reason for choosing these countries is because of the historical and present states of the countries, that is, Lithuania even without a history of women active participation in politics emerged as one of the countries with a female leader in the contemporary world, whereas, in Nigeria there has never been a time in which a woman has assumed such high decision-making position as being a President. The guiding research questions are answered through a qualitative and quantitative data analysis and content analysis is the method employed in this study.
The empirical research is constructed of statistical data analysis; content analysis of strategic documents (such as the UN and USAID annual reports); content analysis of national speeches by the Presidents of Lithuania and Nigeria delivered at the General Assembly of the United Nations General Debate; survey and interviews with experts from gender equality and women empowerment organizations in Lithuania and Nigeria. Each of these methods is briefly described in the following sections:
Statistical Data
Statistical data were collected to learn about women’s participation in politics. An official website of the inter-parliamentary unit (IPU) was used and data about the number of women parliamentarians globally, regionally and country specifics (Lithuania and Nigeria) were collected (archive.ipu.org/wmn-e/world.htm).
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More statistical data such as the current population of Lithuania and the percentage of women and men which constitute the population were also collected using the Official Statistics Portal of Lithuania (https://osp.stat.gov.lt/) and Countrymeters Live Population Clock (https://countrymeters.info/en/Lithuania#Population_clock). The same sets of data were collected for Nigeria (https://countrymeters.info/en/Nigeria). These statistics helped to compare the both countries population to determine whether population could lead to the low count of women in politics.
Strategic Documents
IOs strategic documents were collected for analysis, such documents include the annual report of organizations. The aim of collecting annual reports was to understand the main activities or practices of IOs and also to find out what impacts IOs have made in their practices. In the annual report, the funding strategy of organization (the UN entity for Gender Equality and Women Empowerment) is also analysed. The United Nations Women Strategic Plan for 2018 to 2021 was also collected with the aim of about what the organization’s plan for the future looks like and how it strategizes to empower women in political participation.
Survey
A survey questionnaire was created and distributed using social media platforms (mainly Facebook). The main purpose of creating the survey was to get people’s opinion about women participation in politics. The main target audience was Nigeria and Lithuania and people from the age of 18years and above were eligible to participate in the survey, because in both countries (Nigeria and Lithuania) this age (18+) is considered the voting age, which means they are eligible to have opinion on who they want to vote for. Survey was made specifically to answer questions about the major challenges international organizations face while addressing issues of women political participation as well to determine if Women Political Empowerment could help end gender inequality in the future. The number of respondents was collected for a descriptive analysis using charts and graphs created with the help of an excel tool.
International Relation’s Theory: The main International Relation’s theories employed in this thesis is the Feminist theory (which addresses the issue of gender and politics as well as its take on women empowerment) and the theory of Institutionalism (which addresses institutions, the changes that take place within these institutions, and the interaction and cooperation with the wider society). This is because these theories are central to this topic and would help in explaining how institutions respond to the issue of gender inequality in the political arena and how to tackle it.
Research Structure: This thesis is sectioned into four parts. The first part will cover the theoretical analysis of women participation in politics encompassing the issue of gender and politics; the second part will present
14 the facts about women political participation on a global level, as well as specific steps taken by International organizations to empower women in political participation, the third part will further present empirical analysis of IOs, analysis of the case countries (Lithuania and Nigeria) and survey analysis, and the final part will present the research findings and discussion. The research will be wrapped up by conclusions and possible recommendations.
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1. CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL EXPLORATIONS OF GENDER AND POLITICAL DISCOURSE AND VIEWS FROM THE THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS This section of the Master Thesis gives a general overview of the increasing need for women to be involved in political process and assume decision-making positions, the efforts made by women towards this domain as well as the challenges most of these women are confronted with. Two main International Relations Theories are discussed and this theories will offer a background of what the entire study is all about. The theories will therefore provide their views on the study of International Organizations, women rights, women empowerment and gender equality. The review of past researches and literatures on gender issues and women empowerment is also carried out in this chapter to unravel the main barriers to women political participation and how gender inequality can be tackled.
1.1.The overview of International Relations Theories This section of the thesis presents a general overview of major IR theories central to the topic of this study by examining how institutions (otherwise known as International Organizations) contribute to the discourse of political participation of women and how the empowerment of women in this field is influenced by the roles played by these organizations. The theories which this study will look include the Feminist Theory and the Institutionalist Theory.
1.1.1. Feminists Approach in International Relations Following the rise of the US women’s movement in the 1960s, the emergence of feminist philosophy came into play in the US in the 1970s. In 1966, the National Organization for women worked towards petitioning to stop sex segregation. The development of feminist school of thought in the U.S. presents a phenomenal outlining of the proximate intersection between the improvement of philosophical positions and strategies, as well as their social settings. There are various reasons for the vast expansion of the feminist philosophical work in the U.S. One of such reasons is the fact that many philosophers in the U.S were involved in the social justice movement of the 1960s, those philosophers who contributed to the rise of feminist school of thought during the 1970s in the U.S. were dynamic in and affected by the feminist movement. The philosophers were concerned about the injustices caused by unfair practices emerging from the complex phenomena of sexism.
The theory of feminism therefore explores both inequality in gender relations as well as the constitution of gender. Feminism as a theory succeeded the feminist movement in the mid-1970s. The theory first began as an attempt to explain the global oppression of women, as well as examine the rights of women and the issue of gender equality. Feminist theory also involves the study of women’s roles in a society, which include their rights, privileges, interests and concerns. Many feminist theories came out as early as 1792 as many
16 publications during that time featured the limited rights and privileges of women as a result of wrong perceptions against them. The aim of feminist movement is to bring a substantially more paralleled viewpoint for genders in the world from varying backgrounds, hence, women's liberation bolsters that no decision be it social, political or moral ought to be made on the ground of the sexual orientation of those included.9 Moreover, the ideas supported by feminism are based on recognizing the women as part of the overall social and political structure with efforts made to develop the liberal philosophy.
In feminists’ perspective, political participation matters a whole lot to women, not just because of the political gain of successful protest, collective interests’ mobilization, advocacy or engagement in policy processes, but also because it offers women a form of political apprenticeship that enables them to recognize and articulate interests, build alliances as well as learn the modes of cooperation and consensus building to advance common projects.10 Moreover, in light of the feminists’ thought, a study by Cornwall & Goetz revealed that the inclusion of women in politics and the increase number of their occupancy in political offices lead to better, fairer and more responsive government. Thus, the feminists’ theory movement is expected to have constructive impacts on the political participation of both women and men. Feminism as a theory is grouped into different types and each type explains the extent and the degree of activism this theory represents. There are numerous types of feminist theory, however few of them will be mentioned and discussed in this study. The different types of feminism include:
Radical Feminism: This type of feminism is described as one which those who are regarded as radical feminists think that sexual discrimination is deeply incorporated into the society; thus they believe that completely getting rid of the whole idea of gender is the only way which things could be made equal. In other words, radical feminism is so extremely regarded of the ideology of feminism. With the idea of radical feminism, many women are faced with the fear of identifying themselves as feminists even though they support the idea of the cause of the feminist movement. A study defines radical feminism using four criteria. First of all, the term radical feminism describes the existence of patriarchy together with an obligation to end it.11 Radical Feminism is also described as the use and promotion of women-only space as an organizing method. Moreover, a study defines this Feminist school of thought as a focus on all forms of male violence against women and identify their role as a keystone of women’s oppression broadly, and finally radical feminism is described by the study as an extension of the analysis of male violence against women to include the institutions of pornography and prostitution. In clear and simple term, radical feminism is an extreme form of feminism or a feminism gone too far, a destination at which no sane person would wish to arrive. As a result of the ideology of radical feminism, feminists in general are stereotypically identified as man-
9Feminism: Participation of Women in Politics Democracy (2007, April 8). https://www.essaytown.com/subjects/paper/feminism- participation-women-politics/9609373. 10 Cornwall & Goetz (2005). Democratizing Democracy: Feminist Perspective. 11 Finn Mackay (2015). Radical Feminism. Theory, Culture & Society 32(7 – 8) 332 – 336. 17 bashing, man-hating and lesbian females which is obviously not the case for every feminist. Another author defines radical feminism as a philosophy which emphasizes the patriarchal roots of inequality between men and women, or the social domination of women by men.12 It is also seen as being opposing to the existing political and social organization as it is being inherently tied to patriarchy. The aim of radical feminists is to dismantle patriarchy instead of making adjustments to the system through legal changes.
Liberal Feminism: This feminism approach is one of the opposing approach to the above discussed approach (Radical Feminism). Unlike Radical Feminist theory which advocate for change using the revolutionary means to tackle oppression which they believe is what causes the gender differences between men and women in our society, Liberal Feminist advocate for changes using a somewhat moderate approach.13 Liberal Feminism approach focuses on using legislation as well as an incremental strategy to bring about change. One of the variables Liberal Feminists use in advocating for change is education. According to Liberals, education will help enlighten individuals as it is believed that ignorance has also contributed to gender prejudice. The main goal of this school of thought is to create gender equality in the public sphere, equal access to education, equal pay for both men and women, abolition of job sex segregation, and better working conditions mainly through the application of legal changes.14 A clear example of the advocacy of the liberal feminist theory is seen in the case of Zimbabwe, “addressing the gender inequality”. Based on the Liberal Feminists approach, the Zimbabwean government introduced a new education act – the 1987 Education Act, which stipulated that every child in Zimbabwe should have the right to school education, and most importantly, education was made free and compulsory at the primary level. This education act of 1987 acknowledged the role of education as a liberating force which had to be provided to both boys and girls.15 Although the Liberal Feminist theory has contributed immensely in terms of promoting the need for education especially for female/girl-child, as well as promoting policies that support employment and equal pay, there is still a lot that needs to be done in the area of politics and development. Scholars have therefore concluded that the liberal feminist approach is needed for gradual reforms through advocacy, unlike the radical approach which takes on a more drastic form.
Socialist Feminism: Socialist Feminism is another feminist approach of advocating for change which is different from the previous Radical and Liberal approaches. When radical feminism seeks for change using extreme measures like eradicating the patriarchal system in our society as they believe is the main cause/source of gender inequality in the society, and liberals think that change could be gotten gradually
12 Jone Johnson Lewis (2018). What is Radical Feminism? https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-radical-feminism-3528997. 13 Wellington Samkange (2015). The Liberal Feminist Theory: Assessing Its Applicability To Education In General And Early Childhood Development (E.C.D) In Particular Within The Zimbabwean Context. Global Journal of Advanced Research, Vol-2, Issue- 7 PP. 1172-1178. 14 Jone Johnson Lewis (2018). Liberal Feminism. https://www.thoughtco.com/liberal-feminism-3529177. 15 Wellington S. (2015). The Liberal Feminist Theory: Assessing Its Applicability To Education In General And Early Childhood Development (E.C.D) In Particular Within The Zimbabwean Context. Global Journal of Advanced Research, Vol-2, Issue- 7 PP. 1172-1178. 18 by reforming educational policy and also making reforms in the economic sectors so as to educate people about the need for education etc. Socialist feminism however believes that male domination “patriarchy” is not the only main reason why inequality exists. Socialist Feminists therefore holds that gender inequality is not solely because of the patriarchal system inherent in the society but also because women are mostly financially depending on men.16 According to this school of thought, this type of disparity arises in a society because males dominate the business aspect of the society, which is the cause of gender imbalance. Socialist feminists advocate to end economic and social inequality between men and women, they call for major change in the social context, and advocate to put an end to capitalist economy.17 According to socialist feminists, capitalism is seen to support and strengthen the sexist status quo, they see the society as controlled by men, as men often are the ones in charge of power and money, who are only willing to share their power and money with other men rather than sharing with women. Thus, women tend to receive much less opportunities and resources, and they (women) also continue to be under the control of men. The main focus of socialist feminism is on economic and political reform.
There are numerous other types of feminist theory which just like the above mentioned have their own perspective of how change should be made in a society in order to create equal opportunities for both men and women. Feminism in its real sense cannot be characterized in any seamless way as it takes numerous forms, however, this school of thoughts incorporates the struggles of women to secure their economic and political organisation.18 Hence, this theory is an advocacy for social equality for both men and women as it is opposed to sexism and patriarchy. Moreover, feminist theory main focus is to understand as well as suggest ways to eliminate gender inequality by focusing on gender politics, power relations, sexuality, as well as promoting the rights and interests of women. In Nigeria for instance, feminists have contributed to the political and socio-economic development of the Nigerian women majorly through the formation of women liberation movements such as the Women in Nigeria (WIN) whose main aim is to combat the discriminatory and sexist practices in the family, work place and also in the wider society.
1.1.2. Institutionalists Approach in International Relations The theory of institutionalism has to do with the study of institutions and their interactions. Institutionalists place special emphasis on the roles institutions play in structuring behaviour.19 In International Relations, institutionalists draw insights from economics, game theory as well as collective
16 Dr. Carol Morgan. The Different Types of Feminism: How They Differ from Each Other. https://www.lovepanky.com/my- life/reflections/different-types-of-feminism. 17 Wind Goodfriend; Feminism Types and Definitions: Liberal, Socialist, Culture and Radical. https://study.com/academy/lesson/feminism-types-and-definitions-liberal-socialist-culture-radical.html 18 Fatile, Olufemi Jacob Ph D, Akhakpe, Ighodalo Ph D ,Igbokwe-Ibeto, Chinyeaka Justine, Oteh, Chukwuemeka Okpo Ph D (2012) “Feminism and Political Participation in Nigeria: An Empirical Analysis”, International Journal of Asian Social Science, Vol. 2, No. 7, pp. 1077-1092. 19 Donatella Della Porta and Michael Keating eds (2008). What is Historical Institutionalism: Forthcoming in Approaches in the Social Sciences, Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 19 action theory which are all forms of rational choice, to analyse situations where international cooperation is beneficial, mechanisms of cooperation, and forms of cooperation ranging from intergovernmental organizations to decentralized policy coordination.20 The theory is known to address both the demand and the supply sides of international cooperation, it also was initially focused on analysing the formal institutions of government and the state in comparative perspective. On the demand side of institutional international cooperation, the benefits that international rules, organizations, procedures, and other institutions provide for states in specific situations are analysed, and these benefits are viewed as incentives for institutionalized cooperation.21 Institutionalism on the supply side investigates the conditions under which beneficial cooperation is possible in the absence of a central global government and the mechanisms by which it can be achieved (Abbott, 2007).
In 1977, institutionalism experienced a significant shift in the way it was originally conducted. A new wave of institutionalism rise into what is now known as the ‘New Institutionalism’ or ‘Neo- institutionalism’ which posits that institutions operate in an open environment consisting of other institutions – which is referred to as the institutional environment. New or Neo-institutionalism explains the influence institutions have on human behaviour through certain rules, norms or frameworks. Unlike the early wave of institutionalism which posits that institutions influence individuals within the institutions by either causing them to maximize benefits or cause them to act in a certain way such as being aware of what one is supposed to do, neo-institutionalism’s perspective explains that instead of individuals to act under rules or based on obligations, they act as a result of conceptions. There are numerous sub-fields or waves of institutional theory of which some will be considered in this thesis. Let us look at the following waves of the new institutionalism;
Historical Institutionalism: This approach of Institutionalism sees history as relatable. In HI, institutions tend to follow through the system which was designed early in their existence during their development process. Historical institutionalism pays more attention to real world empirical questions, historical orientation, as well as its attention to the ways in which institutions structure and shape political behaviour and outcomes.22 Historical Institutionalists oppose the belief that human beings are simple rule followers, and they also do not believe that humans are strategic actors who use rules to maximize their interests.23 Historical Institutionalism has significantly contributed to clarify how and why institutional change take place24; thus, in this thesis, based on the Historical Institutionalism perspective, we will be able
20 Kenneth W. Abbott (2007). Enriching Rational Choice Institutionalism for the Study of International Law. 21 Robert O. Keohane, as cited by Kenneth Abbott (2007). The demand for International Regimes. 22 Donatella Della Porta and Michael Keating eds (2008). What is Historical Institutionalism? Forthcoming in Approaches in the Social Sciences, Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 23 Donatella Della Porta and Michael Keating eds (2008). What is Historical Institutionalism: Forthcoming in Approaches in the Social Sciences, Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 24 Waylen Georgina (2009). What can Historical Institutionalism Offer Feminist Institutionalists? Article in Politics and Gender, May 2009. 20 to find out the positive change in gender issues such as improvements in women’s descriptive and substantive representation emerge (Maylen, 2009), as a result of changes that have taken place in various institutions.
Rational choice institutionalism: Rational Choice Institutionalism is derived from economics and organizational theory and it examines institutions as systems of rules and incentives.25 The study of rational choice involves paying attention to how individuals make choices within constraints and these choices are usually in relation to projections about the probable actions of other people.26 The theory of Rational Choice also posits that individually rational choice leads to a collectively efficient outcome, and thus, numerous authors have disagreed with this assumption, with the claim that it fails to be true in the case of institutional emergence and ongoing workings.27 Moreover, as argued by D. Little (2016), “the emphasis on collective benefits in theories of social institutions fails to capture crucial features of institutional development and change.” He also added that institutions are not created to constrain groups or societies in an effort to avoid suboptimal outcomes but, rather, are the by-product of practical conflicts over the distributions inherent in social outcomes.
Sociological Institutionalism: This is also known as Normative Institutionalism, it is concerned with the way institutions create meaning for individuals. This sub-set of institutionalism explains that actors care about the substantive meaning of institutional choices, thus, they seek to realise their preferred institutional designs, which is not only subject to the formal rule constraints but also it is subject to shared constitutional norms.28 Normative or Sociological institutionalism explains that political actors, and of course political parties, all have constitutional preferences. In other words, they all have views about how it is right to organize a political system in general. It also argues that institutions are the primary determinants of human behaviour - and is described as the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction, hence, it defines and limits the set of choices of individuals.29 In relation to this thesis, Sociological/Normative Institutionalism would suggest that International Organizations have the right way or specific approaches which they believe would be effective when empowering women to participate in political process.
Feminist institutionalism: In addition to the three major waves on neo-institutionalism discussed about, it is important to take a look at the feminist institutionalist theory – as this could help to better understand the concept of this study. Feminist institutionalism is an approach that examines the way gender norms function within institutions and how institutional developments create and retain gender power
25 Marijke Breuning and John Ishiyama. Neoinstitutionalism – Social Science. https://www.britannica.com/topic/neoinstitutionalism#ref323995 26 Amanda Driscoll (2008). Feminism and rational choice theory. Paper presented at the European Consortium for Political Research, Joint Sessions of Workshops, Rennes, France, April 11-16, 2008. 27 Daniel Little (2016). Rational Choice Institutionalism. https://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/2016/10/rational-choice- institutionalism.html 28 Thomas Winzen (2014). A normative institutionalist explanation of legislative organization in European Union affairs. National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR); Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century. Working Paper No. 80. 29 Josh Gartland (2009). Merits of Normative Institutionalism. 21 dynamics. In context, feminist institutionalism combines the insights of gendered analysis and institutionalist theory, outlining how and why neutral rules and institutions continuously affect the daily lives of different groups of women and men differently.30 Feminist Institutionalism focuses on both formal and informal institutional environments, and it views institutional change from the perspective of gender; it also sees actors as having agency, even though they are restricted by various constraints.31 This thesis will therefore look into how the issue of gender is tackled by international institutions, and how the rules of national/local institutions regulate and shape gender policy.
1.2. Gender in International Relations Various literatures on the topic of gender and politics lay much emphasis on the issue of women’s political participation and representation.32 The discipline of politics both as a science and a real-world phenomenon is gendered.33 The concept of gender and politics is very multi-faceted in the social sciences, and it’s therefore used to refer to a wide range of phenomena, which stems from multiple and competing meanings of gender and politics. The role of women in contemporary politics is a subject that needs further insight, considering the growth in number of women that nowadays have relevant political positions on the international stage. Because of the quick modernization of the political environment and the fast spreading of the feminists' thoughts, several writers took interest in the gender differences in politics.
Gender issues can somewhat be misleading in a society, for instance, many scholars relate the term gender to only women in their discussions, others allude to it as the relations among people so as to study how the form and content of politics reflect and shape inequalities. However, it is found that there is relatively little difference between male and female candidates in their campaign issues.34 Nevertheless, women are still lowly represented in the political arena. A gender study about Uganda and the role of women in the political and social sphere shows that women’s political and social agency remains significantly low basically due to the persisting structural barriers such as the socio-cultural and economic constraints that are deeply rooted in societal values and norm setting as well as the low levels of education among women.35
Although the world and the disciplines of politics remain male dominated, a study indicated that there are now more women involved in the academic study of politics and politics in practice. For instance, there
30 Prof. Fiona Mackay, Dr. Elin Bjarnegard and Dr. Meryl Kenny (2014). Presenting Feminist Institutionalist Perspectives. Gender Politics at Edinburgh. 31 Fiona Mackay, Meryl Kenny and Louise Chappell (2010). New Institutionalism Through a Gender Lens: Towards a Feminist Institutionalism? International Political Science Review, 31(5) 573 – 588. 32Berrin Koyuncu and Ahu Sumbas (2016) Discussing women’s representation in local politics in Turkey: The case of female mayorship. Women’s studies international forum 58(2016) 41-50. 33Karen Celis et al (2013) “Gender and Politics: A Gendered World, a Gendered Discipline” The oxford handbook of gender and politics. 34Rebekah Herrick (2016) Gender themes in state legislative candidates’ websites. The social science journal 53 (2016) 282-290 35 Datzberger & Le Mat (2017) “Just add women and stir? Education, gender and peacebuilding in Uganda.” International Journal of Educational Development 59(2018) 61-69. 22 has been an increased number of women who are prominent politicians, heads of state and international bodies across the globe, such as in Europe, Africa, as well as Latin America.36 Karen Celis et al also noted in their work that there is over 30 national leaders emerging as women since 1980, such figures include: Hillary Clinton who emerged as the third woman to hold the position of the U.S. secretary of state, Michelle Bachelet who is the president of Chile, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner who has been the president of Argentina from 2007 to 2015, Dilma Roussef who also has held the position as the president of Brazil from 2011 to 2016, Ellen Sirleaf who is the acting president of Liberia as well as other prominent women leaders such as Christine Lagarde who became the first female director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2011.37 There are also prominent women leaders across Europe such as the current president of the republic of Lithuania, President Dalia Grybauskaite became the president of the Republic of Lithuania in 2009 and was re-elected in 2014, Angela Merkel who is currently acting as the Chancellor of Germany and many more.
1.2.1. Factors affecting women participation in political activities A research has indicated that gender outcomes measured in terms of women’s descriptive and substantive representation have shown a relatively positive outcome.38 Waylen (2007) further gave an instance where women had the chance to make some inputs into the negotiations during the South African transition. However, this was as a result of a favourable political opportunity structure and the strategic actions and alliances of certain key women actors. Georgina Waylen pointed out that the consolidation of more equitable political systems in gender terms is more likely if organized groups of women are lobbying institutionalised party systems both from within and from outside for the implementation of formal measures both to increase the numbers of women active at all political levels and to implement women-friendly policies.39 The issue of gender role in politics therefore requires more concern than just an increasing number of women participating in political activities, a more significant change is needed both to politics as a practice and to political science as a discipline to have an equitable gender society.40
There are various barriers to women political participation that need to be properly examined and eliminated. For instance, a study on the women political participation in electoral politics in Africa indicated that the traditional perceptions of Kenyan women as inferior to men still prevail as many people uphold cultural practices which promote the subordination of women.41 Another study about the political
36 Karen Celis et al (2013) “Gender and Politics: A Gendered World, a Gendered Discipline. 37 Karen Celis et al (2013) “Gender and Politics: A Gendered World, a Gendered Discipline” The oxford handbook of gender and politics. 38 Georgina Waylen (2007) Women’s Mobilization and Gender Outcomes in Transitions of Democracy – The case of South Africa. 39 Waylen Georgina (2000) Gender and Democratic Politics: A Comparative Analysis of Consolidation in Argentina and Chile. 40 Karen Celis et al (2013) “Gender and Politics: A Gendered World, a Gendered Discipline” The oxford handbook of gender and politics. 41 Daniel Kasomo (2012). Factors Affecting Women Participation in Electoral Politics in Africa. International Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences. 23 participation of Nigerian women indicated that only few women in few occasions participate in political activities during elections, and few contest for political positions42; thus, it is believed that one of the pressing factors that lead to this is the nature of politics in Nigeria which is mostly characterised by violence. In general, there are various factors that are considered as barriers of hindrances to women participation in political activities, such factors include:
Education: This tends to be one of the most important factors that hinder women participation in politics as only a few women have acquired adequate political education and so most women know little or nothing about politics. A study indicated that women’s education levels has a strong relationship with their representation in formal politics and their participation in other political activities across countries.43 The study also postulated that popular education is one factor that supports adult women’s informal political engagement. Basically, women with the lack of education in the political field are not conversant with the political orientation or structure to enable their participation.
Cultural factor: Traditionally, women are made to stay out of politics in many societies. For instance, in most of the African countries, politics is believed to be the duty of the man, as he (the man) is believed to be the head of the family. Moreover, participating in politics automatically bequeaths one with power and it is generally accepted that only men should be allowed to exercise such power.
Psychological factor: This factor implants in the minds of the individuals in a society various reasons why women cannot participate fully and actively in political affairs. For instance, in a typical African environment, a woman is expected to care for family at all times. If for instance she has numerous political activities/meetings to attend, and does it very often, she would be considered to be an irresponsible woman – (mother & wife).
Poverty: Poverty is another factor that handicaps women and hinders them from actively participating in political activities. Looking at this from the angle of employment, most women are employed for low-wage jobs why men are mostly given high-paid jobs. In most cases, women are even subjected to doing just unpaid jobs of caring for children and home. In such a situation, they basically lack the funds to want to contest for any political position or even become fully involved in political affairs.
1.2.2. Gender and the Glass Ceiling Issues The glass ceiling is a popular metaphorical expression that explains the inability of majority of women to advance past a specific point in their occupations or professions, notwithstanding their
42 Ohizzy (2016). Gender Equality: Factors Hindering Female Participation in Nigerian Politics. http://www.worldpulse.com/en/community/users/ohizzy/posts/66590. 43 Anne Marie Goetz (2003). Women’s education and political participation. Gender and Education for all: The Leap to Equality. 24 qualifications and achievements.44 A study about discrimination at work in the UK work setting found that 73% of women still face barriers to advancement whereas only 38% of men are believed to face same situation.45 It is believed that such discrimination is caused by the pressure on women to combine childcare with career aspirations. Other reasons why many women are not found in the boardrooms include outdate stereotypes about men and women’s different roles in the workplace; lack of high profile women role models; as well as sexism. However, another study argued that glass ceiling could also be as a result of external recruitment and hiring processes,46 according to the study, such discrimination was found in demand-side screening biases against women, as well as the supply-side processes that lead to the formation of applicant pools at separate levels of the hierarchy as having a powerful role in producing the glass ceiling.
A study asserted that not only are there disproportionately few women at the top of organizations or in a position of power (which makes discrimination against women very pervasive at all levels of managerial hierarchies), but there are also claims that the obstacles women face to promotion relative to men systematically increase as they move up the hierarchy.47 Such instances may also be present in the case of men, but study found that it is more severe for women. In an organization for instance, employers and managers may allow women occupy the lower reaches of the managerial structure, but there are always obstructions of access of women to positions of real power. In a study carried out for a period of 5 years from 2012 – 2017, it was discovered that there is a consistent clear evidence of discrimination in men-women salary earned. As at 2017, the study found that females were still earning 75% of men’s salary.48 The study discovered that in 2017, only one-tenth of the most senior roles were occupied by women. Another study found that women executives in the United States were earning a lower percentage of their male counterparts’ remuneration in 2000 than they were in 1995.49 This could be interpreted as the position is being deteriorated instead of getting better.
The issue of the glass ceiling is not found only at firms’ managerial positions, it is also found in every sphere of leadership such as political spheres, religious spheres, film, music, media etc. In the political sphere for instance, a report on exploring women’s achievements in the UK showed that despite the fact that women has got the right to vote for nearly 100 years, only 29% of British MPs are women; 26% of the government is made up of female politicians, 32% of cabinet positions are occupied by women and 24% of
44 David Purcell, Kelly MacArthur and Sarah Samblanet (2010). Gender and the Glass Ceiling at Work. Department of Sociology, Kent State University. 45 Graham Snowdon (The Guardian Report) (2011). “Women still face a glass ceiling.” https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/feb/21/women-glass-ceiling-still-exists-top-jobs 46 Roberto Fernandez & Santiago Campero (2016). Gender Sorting and the Glass Ceiling in High-tech firms. 47 Janeen Baxter & Erik Olin Wright (2000). The Glass Ceiling Hypothesis: A comparative study of the United States, Sweden, and Australia. Gender & Society, Vol. 14 No. 2, April 2000 275-294. Copyright 2000 Sociologists for Women in Society. 48 Jonathan Webb (2017). Glass Ceiling Still Keeps Top Jobs for the Boys: Women earn 75% of Men. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jwebb/2017/01/30/glass-ceiling-still-keeps-top-jobs-for-the-boys-women-earn-75-of-mens- salary/#336024d72bb2. 49 The Economist (2009). The Glass Ceiling. https://www.economist.com/node/13604240. 25 junior government posts are held by women.50 The report also stated that there has been a high level of glass ceiling in the religious institutions up until 1994 when the ceiling began to have big cracks, such happened since the beginning of women’s ordination in 1994. The report showed that the number of full time female clergy grew to 1,870 between 1994 and 2012; it is however still below the number of men as 39 women were found in senior positions, compared to 319 men, thus, it was found that only 11% of the senior clergy in 2012 were women. According to the report by Guardian, “considering the rate of gender representation in the media, a 26-year study of 2,000 newspapers, magazines and websites in the United States found that men were five times bound to be referenced in the US and British news stories than women,” which means that even in the mass media, women are marginally represented. This disparity is believed to be caused by the dominance of men in powerful positions. Some of the factors presented to explain the glass ceiling are as follows:
The time factor: One theory is that the cohorts of first-class female graduates have not yet had time to work through the pipeline and reach the top of the corporate hierarchy. Qualifications for a senior administration post for the most part incorporate an advanced education and 25 years of ceaseless work experience. In the early 1970s, when the present top managers were graduating, less than 5% of law and MBA degrees were being awarded to women. These days, women obtain over 40% of all law degrees in the Unified States and 35% of MBAs.
Motherhood: At times the fault for the glass ceiling is laid at the door of motherhood. Women are often distracted from their career way by the need to remain at home and care for children. They are not able to attempt the tasks required to get to the top; for instance, expanded trips abroad, wearing air miles like fight awards, long evenings "engaging" clients and changing plans at short notice.
Lack of role models: In her 1977 book “Men and Women of the Corporation”, Rosabeth Moss Kanter suggested that because women managers are so often a token female in their workplace, thus they stand out from the rest. This causes them and their failures to be more visible, and overstates the differences between them and the overwhelming male culture.
Lack of suitable education: It is argued that women do not have the right educational preparation for senior executive jobs.51 Example of such education is MBA.
Availability in the Corporation: It is also argued that women whose job choices have put them on the executive track, with the right educational preparation have not been present in the corporation long
50 The Guardian writers (2015). Women of 2015: where are the cracks in the glass ceiling? 51 Jone Johnson Lewis (2017). The Glass Ceiling and Women’s History: An Invisible Barrier to Success. https://www.thoughtco.com/glass-ceiling-for-women-definition-3530823 26 enough to build experience that would land them at the top, which is believed to correct itself automatically with time.
1.2.3. Examining the political participation of women From previous studies, there has been evidence that the higher the number of women in parliament, the stronger the attention to women’s issues will be. A study from the United Nations women shows that women’s political participation is a fundamental prerequisite for gender equality and genuine democracy.52 The UN women also believe that this inclusion of women in political activities could also help to facilitate women’s direct engagement in public decision-making and is therefore regarded as a means of ensuring better accountability to women – as they believe that political accountability to women begins with increasing the number of women in decision-making positions. Nowadays, when talking about the political issues, women are not left out, however, the area of concern is found on the level of participation by both men and women. Real life instances show that women are still not fully participated in political activities as much as men do. In the U.S politics for instance, the majority of political office holders at the state and federal levels are still men.53 Women in the United States held 19.2% of seats in the U.S. Congress (104 out of 535 seats), 24.2% seats in the nation’s state legislatures (only 1,786 out of 7,383 seats) and 24.6% seats in the state-wide elective executive offices (78 out of 317 seats). The figure below demonstrates the share of the elective offices held by women in the United States.
Figure 1: Share of elective offices held by the U.S. Women
Source: Status of women data
The figure above represent the trend on how women participate in the political activities in the United States. Mainly, the figure shows the rate at which women occupy specific position seats such as in the U.S.
52 UN Women, Political Participation of Women. http://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/focus-areas/governance/political- participation-of-women 53 Status of women in the States – Political Participation. https://statusofwomendata.org/explore-the-data/political- participation/#indicators
27
Congress, the State legislatures as well as the Statewide elective offices of women from 1979 to 2015. The figure shows that there has been a gradual rise in the occupancy of seats by women in these positions. However, in the statewide elective office, there was a phenomenal rise in 1999 and there was a sharp fall a decade after.
A study by USAID posited that countries with increased women’s participation and leadership in civil society and political parties are considered to be more inclusive, responsive, egalitarian and democratic.54 Women are seen as subjects of peace and could improve the prospects for durable peace with their full inclusion in decision making process of a state. However, women across the globe are still largely absent from national and local decision-making bodies; they are still struggling to gain a voice in peacebuilding transitions and are as well excluded from major political processes. As pointed out by the USAID, discrimination, violence as well as a lack of support and resources are the major reasons why women face innumerable challenges to participate in the civic and political life of their countries. According to the UN women watch, political participation or participation in electoral processes is not just about voting, it encompasses a lot more than the ability to vote, it also has to do with the freedom to speak out, assemble and associate; the ability to take part in the conduct of public affairs; the opportunity to enrol as an aspirant, to carry out a campaign, elected and to hold an office at all levels of government.55 The study carried out by USAID posited that achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women lies within an effort to strengthen women’s rights and addressing the barriers to women’s political participation. Thus, the USAID as an agency has implemented various programs to alleviate this issue.
According to the UN women watch, there are frequently extra barriers to women’s political participation in post-conflict countries, hence, special care is required to ensure their rights are respected. Moreover, men and women under the international standards have an equal right to participate fully in all aspects of the political process. However, it is often harder for women to exercise this right in practice. The UN Women Executive Director, Michelle Bachelet during her remarks on Women Political Participation in Helsinki, Finland pointed out important facts as well as the factors which restrict women from fully participating in politics which she noted to be violence, poverty, lack of access to quality education and health care, as well as the double burden paid and unpaid work which they face.56 She as well noted that these obstacles leads to the loss of lots of good women leaders and thus acknowledged the importance of actively promoting women’s political participation. Bachelet also mentioned that women’s participation in politics is fundamental to democracy and essential to the achievement of sustainable development and peace.
54 USAID, Strengthening Women’s Rights and Political Participation. https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/gender-equality-and- womens-empowerment/addressing-gender-programming/strengthening-womens. 55 UN women watch. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/wps/publication/Chapter3.htm
56 UN Women, Women’s Political Participation. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/wps/publication/Chapter3.htm. 28
From Bachelet’s speech, women make up less than 10% of world leaders, and there are only 21 women heads of state or government out of 193 UN member states.
The Ukrainian Women’s Fund pointed out the key indicators of gender equality in a society to result from the extent of women’s participation in politics and from women’s access to decision-making.57 The UWF sees gender equality in decision-making to be viewed in the context of whether women are in the position to make or influence public decisions on the same footing as men. According to the UWF, women make up only 7.5% of the present Parliament of Ukraine. However, it is noted that women have dominant representation at the lowest political tiers in the Ukrainian Government. For instance, in the village councils, women occupy a share of 51%, 46% share in the township councils while only 28% in city councils.
This chapter of the study renders insight to the theoretical concept of women’s political participation, encompassing the study of international relations theory such as the feminist theory and institutionalist theory and how these theories explain the topic of gender, women and political participation, and the role of institutions in combating the problem of gender inequality in order to bridge the gender gap in our contemporary society through women empowerment. The chapter also highlights the barriers to women political participation as well as the current status of women in the political domain. The subsequent chapter is focused on the International Organizations (UN and USAID) and various practices put forth by these organizations to empower women and create inclusion for them in political and other leadership roles.
57 Ukrainian Women’s Fund (2011). Women’s participation in Politics and Decision-Making in Ukraine: Strategy Paper 29
2. THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS (THE UN AND USAID): EMPOWERING WOMEN POLITICAL PARTICIPATION THROUGH VARIOUS PRACTICES This chapter of the thesis looks at two major international organizations, their roles in international relations and how they have influenced the political domain by empowering women to be active participants in politics. The international organizations examined in this chapter include the UN (United Nations) and the USAID (United States Agency for International Development). The chapter goes on to talk about the possible challenges these organizations are facing that could slow down impacts they are looking to create in the society. Furthermore, the chapter also examines how these organizations are functioning in the chosen case countries (Lithuania and Nigeria) and the progress of each country in women political inclusion. Some statistical data are presented to further explain the status of women in both countries.
2.1. The UN and its Role in the Empowerment of Women Participation in Politics The United Nations (UN) is an international organization which was founded in 1945 following the devastation of the World War II and it’s currently consists of 193 member states. The organization is made of six major organs which were established when it (the organization) was founded in 1945. The organs include: the General Assembly; the Security Council; the Economic and Social Council; the Trusteeship council; the International Court of Justice and the UN Secretariat. The core mission of the United Nations was to maintain international peace and security. The United Nations does this by working to prevent conflict; helping conflicting parties to make peace; peacekeeping; as well as creating the conditions to allow peace to hold and flourish. The main focus of the organization are to maintain international peace and security; to protect human rights through legal instruments and on-the-ground activities; to deliver humanitarian aid; promote sustainable development as well as to uphold international law. Addition to the above mentioned core activities or responsibilities of the UN, the organization also officiates on creating an environment where women are recognized as important figure in every society in bid to ending the life- long infectious gender inequality.
Various initiatives put forth by the United Nations have portrayed the organization’s interest in fighting to curb gender inequality in the society as well as in political settings and other leadership positions. One of the main UN’s entity for gender related issues is the UN Women which was created in July 2010. UN Women is the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, it is a global supporter of women and girls and was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide.58 UN Women supports the United Nations Member States by setting standards that meet the global needs in the area of gender equality, and also working with governments and civil society to create
58 UN Women; About UN Women. http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/about-un-women 30
laws, policies, programmes and providing services required to make sure that the standards are successfully implemented and that they truly benefit women and girls worldwide. The entity carries out its works on a global level to ensure that the Sustainable Development Goals visions are real for every woman and girl as well as promoting women’s equal participation in all spheres of life.
The top priorities of the UN Women is to see women lead, participate in and benefit equally from governance systems; have income security, decent work and economic autonomy; live a life free from all forms of violence as well as contribute to and have greater influence in building sustainable peace and resilience, and benefit equally from the prevention of natural disasters, conflicts and humanitarian action. UN Women was created as a result of the inability of the United Nations to effectively promote gender equality globally. The foundation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for more impact. The entity unifies and builds on the significant work of four formerly divergent parts of the UN system, whose focus was exclusively on gender equality and women empowerment prospects. In a bid to fight against gender inequality, the UN Women has put together various projects/programs that will contribute immensely to the empowerment of women and give them a voice in all spheres of life. The entity focuses on core priority areas that are fundamental to women’s equality, and that can unlock progress across the board.59
As was noted during the 2011 UN General Assembly resolution on women’s political participation, women in every part of the world continue to be largely marginalized from the political sphere, which is mostly as a result of discriminatory laws, practices, attitudes and gender stereotypes, lack of quality education, poor access to health care as well as the disproportionate effect of poverty on women. This therefore is an issue of concern for UN Women. Thus the entity organized various programmes on leadership and participation for women. The programmes include:
• The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women: This program’s aim is to uphold women’s right to participate in public life • The Beijing Platform for Action: This calls for removing barriers for equal participation • The Millennium Development Goals: This measures progress towards gender equality in part by the proportion of women in parliamentary seats.
The entity not only provide accesses to these various programs which are organized mainly to educate and empower women all over the world, it also provides real-time training for women political candidates to help build their capacities, and offer voter and civic education as well as sensitization campaigns on gender equality. The entity also serve as a backbone for gender equality advocates in calling on political
59 UN Women. Women’s Leadership and Political Participation. http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/leadership-and- political-participation 31 parties, governments and others to contribute their quota in the bid to empower women. There are further programmes implemented by the entity which gives young people – both men and women the courage to take up or be involved in advocating for gender equality measures paramount to public policy-making.
UN Women is currently running a program with the title ‘Step It Up for Gender Equality’ with the aim of reaching planet 50-50 goal by 2030. The main target of the program is to ensure that national pledges to tackle the challenges that serves as setbacks for women and girls from attaining their full potential are implemented by governments. The 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development offers a broad roadmap for the future of people and planet; hence, as noted by UN Women, empowering women and girls is crucial, as this will enhance achievement of the sustainable development goals. Various actions which could aid Step- It-Up according to the UN Women include: passing new laws and reinforcing existing ones, making projects to eliminate violence against women and girls, empowering women and promoting their interest in basic leadership roles, investing in national action plans or policies for gender equality as well as creating public education campaigns to promote gender equality. These activities are the primary focal point of the United Nations (UN) to end gender disparity, and subsequently empower women across the globe.
The USAID and its Role in the Empowerment of Women in Political Participation
USAID was created by the former president of the United States President John. F. Kennedy by executive order in 1961 to lead the US government’s international development and humanitarian efforts. The organization is responsible for international development as well as provides humanitarian support to provide the following to the community in desperate need of – saving lives, poverty reduction, strengthening states democracy, as well as provide incentives for people to be able to make progress without assistance. The USAID is also responsible for the U.S. distant strategy, where it advances human development on a wide scale capacity, and thus creating and exchange mechanism, markets, partners for the USA as well as promotes goodwill overseas. USAID has stood out through its services in various areas such as promoting global health, supporting global stability, providing humanitarian assistance, catalysing innovation and partnership as well as empowering women and girls.60
2.1.1. The role and practices of USAID in International Relations to empower women in political participation USAID is the world’s leading international development agency and a strong player driving development results. USAID's work advances U.S. national security and economic success, exhibits American liberality, and elevates a way to beneficiary independence and flexibility. The purpose of foreign aid should be ending the need for its existence, and it provides development assistance to help partner countries on their own development journey to self-reliance – finding ways to help lift lives, construct
60 USAID, from the American People. About USAID. https://www.usaid.gov/who-we-are 32 communities, and build up independence. USAID shows America's positive attitude around the globe; raises worldwide stability by addressing the main drivers of viciousness; opens new markets and produces open door for exchange; makes creative answers for once unsolvable improvement challenges; spares lives; and promotes democracy, governance, and harmony.61
USAID like other IOs plays a key part in the field of international relations which has been mainly concerned with wars, struggles for power, and the efforts of countries to achieve best national interest. IOs have become very important in the issues of global politics, and play such roles as promoting international understanding and cooperation.62 One major role the USAID plays is the administration of civilian foreign aid and rendering development assistance to developing countries. USAID being an official component of U.S. foreign policy operates in over 100 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe with a primary focus of providing long-term socio-economic development. The Agency’s assistance ranges from technical to financial assistance. These assistances cover the areas of health, education, environment, democracy, as well as economic growth of the beneficiary country.
Based on the focus of this study, the assistance in the area of democracy/politics will be further examined. The agency’s project assisted by democracy offices include those projects for the beneficiary country’s political bodies, which includes elections, political parties, legislatures, as well as human rights organizations. Democracy assistance received its greatest impetus at the time of the creation of the descendant states to the USSR which started in about 1990, corresponding both to USAID's key task of assisting U.S. bilateral interests and to its socioeconomic improvement objective. Moreover, the agency has been providing democracy assistance to countries around the world for over 28 years and has also invested sustainability in a variety of programs in diverse political situations.63 A study finds that democracy assistance does matter for democratic progress. USAID’s aim is not only focused on improving the democracy of these countries, it is also looking at creating an inclusive environment for women in the political sphere, which is basically our main focus of this research, the practical steps taken by the agency to improve as well as empower the participation of women in politics.
According to the agency (USAID), Women have the right to participate in political processes that affect them, their families, and their societies. Countries with more women participating in and leading in civil society and political parties will in general be more progressive, responsive, fair/unbiased, and democratic. When women are fully included in and given the chance to participate in peace processes, they
61 United States Agency for International Development. https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do 62Essays, UK. (November 2013). Role Of International Ngos In Promoting International Politics Essay. Retrieved from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/politics/role-of-international-ngos-in-promoting-international-politics-essay.php?vref=1 63 The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C. 2001. Improving Democracy Assistance: Building Knowledge through Evaluations and Research. www.nap.edu 33 can help to extend the scope of agreements and enhance the prospects for lasting peace.64 The agency has recognized that women all around the world are still largely absent from national and local decision-making bodies, they still struggle to have a voice in peacebuilding transitions, and they are still excluded from political processes. Moreover, women represent half the world population, however, they comprise less than 20% of the world’s legislators, due to discrimination, violence, as well as lack of support and resources; which makes them to be confronted with numerous challenges to participate in the civic and political life of their respective countries. The agency believes that strengthening women’s right and addressing barriers to political participation are critical to achieving gender equality and female empowerment. Hence, to achieve a society where women have a voice and a place in the political/electoral positions, USAID is supporting women in the following ways:
• The agency has and is providing various trainings particularly for women of various political party, parliaments and providing necessary supports to develop women’s caucuses • It also provides special trainings for women’s skill and leadership building in the civil society, women’s organizations, and further the training of female journalists • USAID supports women’s participation in political and post-conflict transitions • It improves women’s access to justice and increases their participation and representation in the justice sector • The agency also supports local efforts to support legal rights that allow women to be a part of the political and economic life of their societies • Lastly, USAID helps build capacity for civil society organizations to support women participation in political moves and governance processes.65
For the agency to easily achieve the above listed goals, it has in 2012 launched the Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG Center), a global resource for evidence-based research. Since the DRG Centre was launch, it has delivered technical skill, urgent funding, and critical information to the United States Government as well as to the international development community.
The Women in Power (WiP) Project: This project was launched by the DRG centre of the USAID. The project was implemented in 2014 to review USAID’s programming related to the promotion of women’s political empowerment and leadership, to examine successes and challenges in historical and current programming, as well as testing a new statistical model for measuring women’s political leadership. The WiP project highlighted two factors that require transformation in every country in order to increase
64 USAID, Strengthening Women’s Rights and Political Participation. https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/gender-equality-and- womens-empowerment/addressing-gender-programming/strengthening-womens 65 USAID, Strengthening Women’s Rights and Political Participation. https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/gender-equality-and- womens-empowerment/addressing-gender-programming/strengthening-womens 34 women’s political presence, access and influence; the supply-side and demand-side factors. The supply-side factors increase the number of women with capabilities, resources and motivation to run for office and the demand-side factors influence whether women will be recruited from the supply to become candidates, legislators and political leaders.66 There are however various factors which influence both the supply and demand side factors, one of such factors is cultural attitude about what roles and positions are appropriate for men and women in a given society. The figure below demonstrates a summary of the influence of supply- and demand-side factors at different stages of political recruitment.
Figure 2: Factors influencing the Supply and Demand-side of increased women political presence which requires transformation
Source: Adapted from Hughes, Ashman and Pournik (2016) The supply-and-demand strategies propose ways that USAID and its partners can address deep- rooted sociocultural barriers to women’s political empowerment by mainstreaming gender in civic and voter education, as well as using the media as a force for change and combating violence against women in politics.67 In order to politically empower women, much attention is required in both supply- and demand-side of political parties. For instance, increasing the number of capable women is not enough if political parties are not willing to appoint them or to place them in winnable positions on party lists. Similarly, removing barriers to women’s access to elected office does not empower them if they do not have the confidence, resources and networks to help them navigate political organisations and to ensure that their voices are heard once they arrive. There are various strategies to consider to increase the number of qualified women leaders in both supply-side and demand-side approaches. Most USAID women’s political empowerment programs seek to close the gap that prevent women from gaining the necessary skills and confidence to participate in
66 Melanie M. Hughes, Darcy Ashman and Milad Pournik (April 12, 2016): USAID: Women in Power Project Summary Report. Produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. 67 USAID, Women in Power Summary Report. https://www.usaid.gov/documents/2496/women-power-summary-report 35
politics or compete against men for public office, which is as a result of the society and social structures such as family, education systems as well as the labour force. Under the WiP project, approximately 38% of the programs reviewed are targeted towards the supply of women leaders, candidates or elected officials. A study demonstrates that it is very expensive to run political campaigns and is even getting more expensive in many countries nowadays.68 The WiP project respondents in all the case study countries pointed to women’s financial disadvantage as a significant obstacle to their political empowerment.69 In order to close the financial gap that limits women to take active part in politics, women should be trained on fundraising, and fundraising networks should be established to support all women candidates.
Furthermore, it is important to encourage the inclusion of women in legal and institutional development during democratic transitions. Studies have found that the inclusion of women in these processes offers an unparalleled opportunity to create political institutions that are more favourable to women’s political representation and leadership.70 USAID has put together some practices which serve to promote the inclusion of women’s perspectives in decision making. One of such practices is the launch of the Diamond Leadership Model (DLM), the DLM is a new tool piloted by the USAID WiP project to measure women political empowerment. This tool looks much more holistically at women across the Executive, Judiciary, Legislative arms as well as a focus on security sector which has been a real gap in data.71 Unlike other tools which focus only on the percentage of women in national legislative or executive cabinet, the DLM more like closes the data gap as it measures women’s political leadership horizontally (legislative, executive, judicial and in security sectors) and vertically (at high, middle and low levels),72 in other words, the model measures women leadership in all the sectors using three indicators in three different levels. The bottom-line is that, women are needed in all of the sectors as this would enhance recruitment of more women into political parties, policies made would more likely be favourable to women, and also women will receive more support needed to get elected. A breakdown of each sector is presented in the following figure:
68 Bussey, Jane. 2000. “Campaign Finance Goes Global.” Foreign Policy 118 (Spring):74–84 69 Melanie Hughes, Darcy Ashman and Milad Pournik (2016). Women in Power Project Summary Report, produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. 70 Tripp, Aili Mari. 2015. Women and Power in Postconflict Africa. Cambridge University Press. 71 Women in Power Project Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSkQXXYC4bo&feature=youtu.be 72 USAID, Women in Power Summary Report. https://www.usaid.gov/documents/2496/women-power-summary-report 36
Figure 3: The Diamond Leadership Model (DLM)
EXECUTIVE
High: Cabinet Ministers Mid: Top Executive Technocrats
Low: Mayors from 10 largest cities
LEGISLATIVE JUDICIAL
High: Party leaders DIAMOND High: Constitutional judges
Mid: Committee chairs LEADERSHIP Mid: High court judges Low: National legislatures MODEL Low: Appeals judges
SECURITY High: Commanders Mid: Mid-level officers
Low: Lower-level officers
Source: Created by Author
In constitutional development processes, the USAID promotes the inclusion of women political and civic leaders. This is believed to enable women’s voices to be heard and their interests to be taken seriously by transitional regimes drafting constitutions. For instance, in South Sudan, USAID partners IRI (International Research Institute) and NDI (National Democratic Institute), together with UN Women, sponsored South Sudan’s first Women’s Constitutional Conference to engage women in developing South Sudan’s permanent constitution. Similarly, in Nepal, USAID partner NDI helped a cross-party women’s alliance advocate for women’s rights during constitution drafting.73 Furthermore, women should be given a chance to participate in peacebuilding processes. In our contemporary world, women are exempted from
73 Melanie Hughes, Darcy Ashman and Milad Pournik (2016). Women in Power Project Summary Report, produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. 37 peace negotiations. This however has triggered USAID to implement programs to empower women in developing strategic skills to navigate and leverage influence during negotiation and peacebuilding processes. For instance, in Yemen, USAID partner NDI supported female delegates to Yemen’s National Dialogue Conference and women’s participation in peacebuilding and national reconciliation efforts between the North and South of Yemen. In Burma, USAID partner IFES (International Foundation for Electoral Systems) implemented peacebuilding activities geared toward incorporating gender-integrated practices into electoral systems and processes, working with female members of parliament (MPs) and civil society leaders to understand opportunities within the electoral reform agenda of the 2015 elections.
Ensuring quota enforcement by pressure monitoring bodies is also one way of creating inclusion for women in decision making processes. Courts and different establishments have turned out to be imperative destinations of contestation over gender quotas. Local, regional and international organizations can participate in this procedure by influencing monitoring bodies to implement quotas. For instance, in Mexico, NDI which is USAID partner was part of a more extensive alliance of local and international players that exerted pressure on the electoral courts to implement the 40% quota law, as well as to end the practices of political parties of substituting elected females with males.
Women in Government (WIG) project in Afghanistan by USAID’s promote: USAID’s promote is USAID’s largest women empowerment program in her entire history which aims to advance opportunities for Afghan women in political domain, private sector as well as in the civil society.74 In its five-years of existence, the program’s (Promote) main focus has been on education, promotion, and training of a new generation of Afghan women, as well as raising increasing women leaders who can contribute to the development of Afghanistan. USAID’S promote also strengthens women’s right groups, boots female participation in the economy, increase the number of women in decision making positions within the Afghan government, and further helps women to gain business and management skills.
USAID recognizes that the empowerment of women is one of the greatest in recent time, and Afghanistan being ranked as one of the least when it comes to measuring gender equality and empowerment needs a huge support in the area of women’s empowerment as the foundation for economic growth, peace and security. Moreover, women have been poorly represented in political domain and decision making positions in Afghanistan. The figure below shows the proportion of seats held by Afghan women in national parliament.
74 USAID: About Promote. https://promoteafghanwomen.org/en/about-us/ 38
Figure 4: Share of seats held by Afghan women in the national parliament from 1997 to 2017
Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments (%) 30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 1997
Source: The World Bank Data (World Development Indicators)
The above figure shows that women hold an insignificant place in the Afghan national parliament, and there has been very minute or no improvement over the years. As a result of this, the U.S. government as well as international donors have made it a top priority to provide foreign assistance to the Afghan’s government for the past 15 years.75 As a result of the U.S partnership with the Government of Afghanistan, the women of Afghanistan have made significant improvements in various areas, even though the active participation of women in political activities is not yet achieved.
The above impacts show that there is great hope for women to be politically inclusive and gain a chance to participate in decision making process. Another means of reaching out to the Afghan women by USAID’s Promote program is through its Women in Government (WIG) project. This project supports Afghan women and government stakeholders to create opportunities for women to join the civil service.76 To encourage more women in the pursuit of inclusion in the government and other leadership positions and to broaden their skills, the WIG project implements a year-long internship training program for women in core civil service skillsets, provide technical assistance to develop and implement gender-inclusive policy reforms, and cultivates local stakeholder support through targeted outreach campaigns. The WIG project results demonstrate clear improvements in women’s professional skills and have also created a high-level political will to bring more women into decision-making roles.
75 Herbert Smith, USAID Afghanistan Mission: Promote. https://www.usaid.gov/afghanistan/promote/ 76Dr. Susanne E. Jalbert & Robert Lord-Biggers (2018). Empowering women and cultivating equitable governance in Afghanistan. https://chemonics.com/empowering-women-and-cultivating-equitable-governance-in-afghanistan/ 39
Funding the PROWID (Promoting Women In Development) project: The PROWID project titled toward Promoting Gender Equity in the Democratic Process; seen as women’s paths to political participation and decision making carried out by the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) and The Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) was funded by the Office of Women in Development at the USAID.77 By highlighting issues surrounding governance and civil society, the PROWID projects pointed to various ways in which women can be integrated into the democratization process. The project considers a particular framework where several elements that cover and reflect the real essence of the project are discussed. These elements are grouped under three central topics which include: political culture, civil society, and government institutions.
2.2.Diplomatic encounter between International Organisations and Countries to empower women and curb Gender Inequality Women empowerment encompasses the transformation of the major system that makes up a society in order to offer women a better and a more inclusive environment to thrive in. It is important for every government to understand that transforming the economic, political, social, psychological and legal circumstances of women in a society is the core of women empowerment. The issue of women empowerment has become a central thematic discourse in contemporary society. Sadly, women still hold little or no post in decision making position, being largely ignored in planning, design and implementation of development programmes and policies which directly affect them, even though they play roles that are central to development process. For instance in Nigeria, despite the fact that women comprise of almost half of the entire population, produce about 60% of food crops, and are involved in 90% food processing, not mentioning their unpaid job of raising children, and caring for the household, they are still not provided with the right tools for their productivity,78 and they are not regarded as deeming fit for inclusion in decision- making processes. There are numerous factors which contribute to the situation where women’s roles in promoting economic and social change continues to be inadequately recognized and undervalued, some of these factors include:
i. The contemporary society is still very much male-dominated in the developing countries; and this makes women to hold inferior positions in those societies. ii. The societal customs, taboos and sexual division of labour also contribute by keeping women still subordinate to men iii. Again, developing economies have failed to put value on unpaid production activities performed by women at the domestic front, and in their family farms.
77 Patricia Ahern, Paul Nuti & Julia M. Masterson (2000). Promoting Gender Equity in the Democratic Process: Women’s Paths to Political Participation and Decision making. 78 Arum I. (2010). Women NGO’s and Women Empowerment in Nigeria. 40
Due to the above and many other factors preventing women from participating in political activities, the UN and USAID have made great feats to see to the situation and to ensure that the rate of gender inequality is less in every society. One of such great feats was the declaration made by the United Nations to make 1975 through 1985 “Decade for Women”. Thus, there were world conferences held in major cities. In Mexico City (1975), Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985) and Beijing (1995), where the issues affecting the status of women in the society were discussed and various actions were taken such as the creation of new NGOs by women (as in the case of Nigeria) to empower themselves.79 Furthermore, the United Nations UN Women and Canada co-hosted an international conference on women’s economic empowerment in Ottawa in October 2011,80 where more than 100 global experts, entrepreneurs, policy-makers, development practitioners, academics and business/industry leaders were gathered to share their experiences and best practices on how to break down the barriers to women empowerment. There is a strong presence of international organizations in many developing countries with the goals of promoting gender equality and bridging the gender gap by empowering women through various initiatives.
2.2.1. International Organizations (the UN and USAID) and Women Political Empowerment in Lithuania Lithuania, a country in the Baltic Region of North-eastern Europe, with the population of about 2.8 million people is one of the few countries with a woman as its president, with the likes of its neighbouring Baltic nation Estonia, and other European nations such as Germany and Croatia. Lithuania became a member of the United Nations on the 17th of September, 1991 after its statehood was re-established in 1990.81 As a member of the organization, Lithuania has become actively involved in the organization’s activities and one of its top priorities at the UN is to promote human rights, including the rights of women and child. Together with the United Nations, the country is firmly rooted in promoting the principles of equality, women political and economic empowerment, the implementation of the fight to eradicate violence against women (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania). Below are some of the programmes in Lithuania which supported by IOs to empower women in political participation.
Women Political Leaders Summit: Not only is Lithuania involved in empowering women, the country has become one of the homes of hosting events and programs that promote women in powerful positions both economic and political aspects. For instance, in June of 2018, the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuanian (The Lithuanian Parliament) hosted the Women Political Leaders (WPL) Summit 2018 with the title “It’s About Time: 100 Reasons to Act” where over 250 women in power gathered to discuss the way forward for women outside only having the ability to vote.82 The summit was in cooperation with
79 Arum I. (2010). Women NGOs and Women Empowerment in Nigeria (pp. 272-280). African Research Review, An International Multi-Disciplinary Journal, Ethiopia Vol. 4(3b) July, 2010. 80 Empower women. https://www.empowerwomen.org/en/who-we-are/about-us 81 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania (2014). United Nations. https://www.urm.lt/default/en/foreign- policy/lithuania-in-the-region-and-the-world/international-organizations/united-nations. 82 World Political Leaders Global Forum: WPL Summit 2018. https://wplsummit.org/ 41
International Organizations such as the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), the OECD, and the United Nations etc. The WPL Leadership Campaign was inspired by the UN Women HeForShe activities, with the aim of engaging mean as agents of change to end gender disparity. Thus, more than 70 (seventy) men Heads of State and Government has contributed a testimonial and have made clear the core reasons why more women leaders are needed.83 According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union in collaboration with the UN Women, more women are needed in parliaments and as political leaders because women are well under- represented in these positions. The figure below demonstrates the World share of women and men in parliament and other political positions.
Figure 5: Global Share of Men and Women in Political Positions (in %)
100
80 93.4 92.7 82.3 77.3 60
40
20 22.7 17.7 6.6 7.3 0 Parliamentarians Members of Heads of State Heads of Government Government
Men Women
Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and UN Women
The above figure clearly explains the level of marginalization faced by women when it comes to the area of politics and leadership as a whole. It also implies that so much still has to be done to tackle this menace, and gender equality cannot only be accomplished by women alone, but the support of men leaders are highly needed. Just like the above figure which depicts a global representation, country specific representation also depicts a similar picture of women under-representation. The table below shows the number of women in Parliament in the Republic of Lithuania.
Table 1: Women in Parliament in the Republic of Lithuania and World Rank between 2000 and 2016
World Rank Year Seats Women % of Women 55th Dec, 2000 141 15 10.6 31st Dec, 2004 141 31 22.0 67th Dec, 2008 141 25 17.7 47th Dec, 2012 139 34 24.5
83 WPL, Leadership Campaign. https://www.womeninparliaments.org/ 42
84th Dec, 2016 141 30 21.3 Source: Women in National Parliaments in collaboration with the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)
The above table demonstrates the percentage of women in the Lithuanian Parliament between the year 2000 and 2016, comprising of five different terms of governance. Even though there has been fluctuating number of women Parliamentarians, the only significant change took place after the year 2000 term where double the number of women were elected into parliament in 2004. Subsequently, there has been continuous increase and decrease in the number of women parliamentarians in the Republic of Lithuania. It is however very surprising that in a country where women far out-number men, these women are somewhat still marginalized or to say that their presence is still very bleak in the political sphere. According to statistics, the total population of Lithuania as of December 2018 stands at 2,714,588 where the population of women constitute 53.6% and men 46.4%.84 The low population rate of Lithuanian men is associated with their high mortality rate. Statistics show that the life expectancy of women is around the age of 80.5 years compared to men age of 70.5 years (Countrymeters.info), which means that women live 10years longer than men. This simple factor should serve as a reason why more women should run for political offices. The table below presents statistics of the number of women per 1000 men in different age group according to Statistics Lithuania;
Table 2: The number of women per 1000 men in Lithuania
Age range Number of women per 1000 men for the year 2018 (Statistics as of 2018 – 05 – 30) 20 – 24 946 25 – 29 927 30 – 34 949 35 – 39 981 40 – 44 1,044 45 – 49 1,079 50 – 54 1,118 55 – 59 1,195 60 – 64 1,316 65 – 69 1,520 70 – 74 1,780 75 and above 2,409
84Countrymeters, 22 December 2018. Lithuania Population -> Population fact sheet. https://countrymeters.info/en/Lithuania#facts 43
Source: Official Statistics Portal of Lithuania, https://osp.stat.gov.lt/
The table above demonstrates that there is a high number of women in Lithuania compared to the number of men, however, these women are under-represented in leadership positions. The reason why this is so could be as a result of some factors such as stereotype – many women still hold the believe that politics is a taboo, also, some societies still believe that it is a taboo for women to speak in the public, as well as interact with several men whom they do not know.85 Moreover, women are still expected to focus only on performing their traditional roles of domestically keeping the household such as caring for children, overseeing the kitchen and of course procreation.86 Other factors such as religion, lack of financial aid, lack of support from their male counterparts, lack of internal democracy in their respective political parties, as well as the unfavourable terrain of politics also contribute to less women willing to participate in politics.
Orange the World Initiative: This initiative is a move of empowerment of which Lithuania participated in the most recent on the 25th of November 2018, where the president’s office of the Republic of Lithuania joined the global movement against violence. This movement is an initiative of the United Nations which takes place annually with the titled “Orange the World” marked as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, with the aim of campaigning and raising awareness of violence against women more broadly.87 Violence against women, if not tackled, can prevent women from achieving their dreams – political, economic, and leadership dreams etc. The president of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite, who is also the chair of the Council of Women Leaders delivered a speech during the movement held in the presidential palace in Vilnius, Lithuania. In her speech, the president made the following comment as quoted below:
“the deeply rooted ‘culture of violence’ spreads pain and misery across society, domestic violence is not limited by education, income or occupational status, thus, to overcome the acceptance of violence, we need pro-active human resources, courage and public awareness.”
The government of Lithuania is involved in different initiatives and implementing various projects to ensure that gender parity is attained and violence against women is brought to an end. Violence against women happen in different forms and takes place in different places. It also plays a huge part in creating gender disparity; most women who have experienced violence whether domestic, sexually or verbally would almost always not want to participate in social and political activities because of stigma and fear of being abused.
85 Aarti Dwivedi, Ph.D Student on Quora (2013). Why do you think there are so few women in Parliament? https://www.quora.com/Why-do-you-think-there-are-so-few-women-in-Parliament 86 Davidson Aminu (Sept. 2018). Women and Political Empowerment. https://guardian.ng/politics/women-and-political- empowerment/ 87 Council of Women World Leaders. https://www.lrp.lt/cwwl/news/the-presidents-office-joins-global-movement-against- violence/21579 44
Thus, the fight to eradicate violence against women is imperative and would provide a platform for more women to be willing to participate in politics.
2.2.2. International Organizations (the UN and USAID) and Women Political Empowerment in Nigeria Nigeria is a West African Country which is officially known as the Federal Republic of Nigeria, with a population of over 190 million (2017 estimate), which makes it the most populous country as well as the second economic power in Africa.88 Nigeria adopted a democratic form of government in 1999 and has since then been operating in democracy despite the upsurge of the security issues which it currently faces. Nigeria is one of the countries whose political setting is mainly dominated by men, as a result of this, women political empowerment has become a topical issue in the country leading to mixed reaction from the general public by both literate and non-literate.89 However, there is a proportion of the society who promote and support the cause of women participation in politics which they believe that this would control the decision-making organ of government and could eventually result in the ever longing change to transform our society. Moreover, women make up more than 50% (fifty percent) of the country’s population who form the majority of the electorate during elections (the Guardian, Nigeria).
Just as in Lithuania (see table above) where women are under-represented in the parliament, Nigerian women are as well under-represented in the House of Assembly (bot at the Upper House/Senate and the Lower House/House of Representatives). The table below clearly presents the number of women in both the upper and the lower house in the Nigerian National Assembly:
Table 3: Women in both the Lower and Upper House of the National Assembly in Nigeria and World Rank between 1999 and 2015 (a period of 5 terms)
Lower House/House of Reps. Upper House/Senate World Rank Year Seats Women % of Women Seats Women % of Women 113th Dec, 1999 351 12 3.4 109 3 2.8 107th Dec, 2003 360 17 4.9 107 3 2.8 117th Dec, 2007 358 25 7 109 9 8.3 125th Dec, 2011 352 24 6.8 109 7 6.4 134th Dec, 2015 360 20 5.6 109 7 6.5 Source: Women in National Parliaments in collaboration with the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)
The above statistical table shows the participation rate of women in four different regime between 1999 and 2015. According to the Nigerian Constitution adopted in 1999 which was followed by the restoration of Democracy in the country, everyone has the equal right to vote and be voted for, however, since the
88West Africa Gateway (2012). http://www.oecd.org/swac/publications/Nigeria_e-version_en_light.pdf 89 Davidson Aminu (Sept. 2018) on The Guardian Politics. Women and Political Empowerment. https://guardian.ng/politics/women-and-political-empowerment/ 45
restoration of the so-called democracy, the system has been nothing other than male-dominated. A deeper look at other political positions other than being members of the National assembly is presented below:
Table 4: Nigerian Women in other top political positions in the country
1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 Office Seat Women Seat Av. Women Seat Av. Women Seat Av. Women Seat Av. Women Av President 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 V/President 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 Senate 109 3 109 4 109 8 109 7 109 8 House of 351 12 360 17 358 25 352 24 360 20 Reps Governor 36 0 36 0 36 0 36 0 36 0 Dep. 36 1 36 2 36 6 36 3 36 4 Governor Source: Friends of the environment, https://fote.org.ng/2018/12/sdg-5-gender-equality-in-nigeria-a- critical-political-analysis/
The table above demonstrates the number of women in top political positions in Nigeria. From the above data, women have never been given the opportunity to officiate as the President, Vice President and as the Governor of any of the thirty six (36) states of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In other decision- making positions such as the Senate, House of Representative and the Deputy Governor, very few women have had the chance to officiate, very under-represented considering the number of total positions available and the number of their male counterparts in those positions. It is however surprising for the lack of progress with women’s political representation in Nigeria considering the fact that women’s role in the country’s socio-economic and cultural landscape is on the increase, thus, it is expected that women increasing role in the society leads to their more inclusion in political processes.90 Further look at the population of the country and the percentage share of the both men and women shows that there is as much women as there are men in Nigeria, and these women are almost completely left out or marginalized. The table below briefly presents the Nigerian population as of December 2018;
Table 5: The current population of Nigeria and the percentage of men and women (as of December 2018)
Total Population 199,663,235 Population share Life Expectancy (Total L/Exp. In Nig. – 54.5yrs) Pop. Of Men Pop. Of Women Men Women
90 Nkwachukwu Orji, Chukwuemeka Orji and Oluchi Agbanyim (2018). Women’s Political Representation In Nigeria: Why progress is slow and what can be done to fast-track it. 46
101,111,504 (50.6%) 98,564,595 (49.4%) 53.4 years 55.6 years Source: https://countrymeters.info/en/Nigeria
Table 6 above presents information on the population of men and women in Nigeria as well as the life expectancy for both men and women. First of all, the population of women in Nigeria is almost the same as the population of men which doesn’t justify why women are less represented in top positions. Secondly, women tend to live about two and a half (2 ½) years longer than men, this should create more room for women to officiate leadership positions. However, the problem of under-representation of women as a result of some concerns which are still prevalent in the country when considering the issue of politics. Such concerns include religious and cultural bias against women participation in politics, low membership in political parties and party structure.91 The poor representation of Nigerian women (just like other developing nations) has raised numerous concerns to International Organizations particularly the UN and USAID, NGOs, and other Donor Institutions. The UN and USAID are working to empower women by organizing various campaign programs in both public and private sectors as well as the civil society.
For instance in 2013, USAID held a women empowerment program in Nigeria and neighbouring African countries to empower women in both economic and leadership fields. One of the activities carried out by the organization include a close work with the Legislative Coalition on Violence against Women. Their aim was to get the Violence against Persons Prohibition Bill passed by the Senate House of Assembly of Nigeria.92 Over the past four years, the agency has released over $ 60 million to funding and supporting women’s leadership in the Nigeria and other African counties in diverse sectors. These funds are meant to support women to be part of conferences, government activities, as well as political transitions.
UN on the other hand is also contributing immensely to transforming the current political situation of Nigeria by ensuring that women are politically and economically empowered through different empowerment practices. The UN entity for gender equality and women empowerment (UN Women) together with a range of partners are focused on specific areas which they believe could potentially transform the nation’s gender equality landscape, these areas include in quote;
“expanding women’s voice, leadership and participation; women’s economic empowerment; preventing violence against women and girls and access to service; as well as increasing women’s leadership in peace, security and humanitarian response.”93
The presence of the UN Women in Nigeria is also to support the revision of discriminatory laws, regulation policies, systems and practices at both national and local levels, and also to support in developing
91 Friends of the Environment. SDG 5: Gender Equality in Nigeria – A Critical Political Analysis. https://fote.org.ng/2018/12/sdg- 5-gender-equality-in-nigeria-a-critical-political-analysis/ 92 USAID – Empowering women in Nigeria. 93 UN Women, Africa. http://africa.unwomen.org/en/where-we-are/west-and-central-africa/nigeria 47 and implementing a gender policy within the Nigerian police forces to help protect women and girls against sexual and gender-based violence – violence against women and girls also deter them from participating in politics for fear of being assault by their male counterparts. Moreover, the entity is also working towards strengthening women’s participation in democratic governance through enhancing their political and public consciousness and also creating political accountability on gender equality and women’s right (UN Women). In 2014 for instance, the UN Women disbursed the sum of $535,000 (Five Hundred and Thirty Five Thousand Dollars) a local initiative in Nigeria – Nigeria Community Life Project for the purpose of empowering grass-roots women leaders for participation in local governance in two states of south-western Nigeria. Despite all that the organizations are trying to do to ensure that women are politically empowered, there are various challenges they encounter.
2.2.3. The major Challenges faced by IOs (and other donor institutions) in their practices to empower women in political participation in Lithuania and Nigeria As a result of the traditional beliefs and cultural restrictions put forth by family and network systems, women are still faced with barriers to political participation, notwithstanding the inclusion of quotas for them in both national and municipal bodies. Moreover, violence against women is still prevalent and consistently underreported as a result of societal and familial pressures. For instance, research puts it that one in every three women experiences gender-based violence in her life-time. This violence ranges from sexual, physical, psychological, and emotional abuse, sexual harassment, child marriage, domestic violence, female genital mutilation (FGM), as well as trafficking.94 Nevertheless, it is estimated that over 62 million girls around the world are not in school, and even those who are, battle to remain in the classroom,95 and women comprise of just 24% (as of 1st November 2018) of all national parliamentarians.96 (See table below).
Table 6a & b: World and regional averages of Women in National Parliament (Data as of 1st November 2018) 6a: World Average
Single or Lower House Upper House or Senate Both Houses Combined Total MPs 39,134 6,979 46,113 Gender breakdown 38,699 6,979 46,113 known for Men 29,394 5,305 34,699 Women 9,305 1,674 10,979
94 USAID, Gender Equality = Smarter Development. https://www.usaid.gov/infographics/gender-equality-smarter-development 95 The Plan International Canada Inc. – Girls Education. https://plancanada.ca/girls-education-archive. 96 Inter-Parliamentary Union & UN Women ; Women in Politics: Situation on January 1st, 2015 48
% of Women 24.0% 24.0% 24.0% Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union (http://archive.ipu.org/wmn-e/world.htm), November 2018
6b: Regional averages
Single/Lower House Upper House or Senate Both houses combined Nordic countries 42.3% - - Americas 29.9% 30.6% 30.0% Europe – OSCE member 27.9% 27.21% 27.7% countries (including Nordic countries) Europe – OSCE member 26.5% 27.1% 26.6% countries (excluding Nordic countries) Sub-Saharan Africa 23.7% 22.3% 23.6% Asia 19.6% 17.7% 19.4% Arab States 18.6% 12.6% 17.8% Pacific 15.5% 37.1% 17.0% Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union (http://archive.ipu.org/wmn-e/world.htm), November 2018
Regions are classified by descending order of the percentage of women in the lower or single House.
The table above shows that women are under-represented in the parliament both globally and regionally. This under-representation of women shows that a lot of work still needs to be done by international organizations as well as other donor organizations to see to it that women have an even ground on political issues. Political parties and election partners also contribute largely to these challenges as they still highly make room for males, thus women tend to exclude themselves from participating in politics due to the oppressive culture and sexual exploitation from their male counterparts, which leaves them with the mind-set that politics is unsafe and leadership is patriarchal in nature.97 IOs would have a huge task in educating such women in order to make effective their empowerment practices. Again, in every society, women are mostly affected by poverty, thus, IOs will face a huge challenge as lack of resources to facilitate their participation could prevent them from achieving effective empowerment practices. The organizations would also have to deal with the discriminatory laws, practices and attitudes which contribute largely to the marginalization of women from the political sphere.98
97 Dr. Ave Maria E. Semakafu, Coordinator – Tanzania Women Cross Party Platform and DemoFinland. Challenges facing women participation in election process in Tanzania. 98 The 2011 UN General Assembly resolution on women’s political participation 49
The chapter addresses the impacts made by International Organizations (UN and USAID) to empower women through various programmes, and projects in Nigeria and Lithuania. Although these organizations are faced with some challenges, their aim is to see that women are empowered politically, economically in the society and also that women are given more chance to contribute to the growth of the society through their voices and actions. The next chapter will look at the empirical study of International Organizations (UN and USAID) practices by analysing some of the organizations’ strategic document, empirical study of Women’s Political Participation in case countries (Lithuania and Nigeria) through the analysis of speeches by the presidents of both countries and the analysis of survey questionnaire.
50
3. EMPIRICAL STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS (UN AND USAID) PRACTICES AND THE PROSPECTS TO INCREASE WOMEN’S POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN LITHUANIA AND NIGERIA This chapter presents the empirical analysis of this thesis by analysing the level of concern of both the Republic of Lithuania and the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The chapter will also look at the outcomes of different practices of the International Organizations (UN and USAID) by reviewing their annual reports and other strategic documents.
3.1. Analysis of Strategic Documents of UN and USAID In this section, there will be analysed the strategic documents (such as annual reports of the organizations, follow-up documentation, strategic plan documentation etc.). The aim is to gather altogether information and evaluate the impact made by International Organizations as well as understand what organizations’ plan is, which will determine the action to be taken in the future and how this action could potentially impact women’s decision to participate in political process (empower women political and otherwise).
3.1.1. United Nations (entity for gender equality and women’s empowerment) Annual Reports Annual Reports
The UN Entity for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment’s (UN Women’s) on a yearly basis develop annual reports with the aim of highlighting some of the organization’s initiatives during the year.99 The annual report of the UN Women documents the entity’s work to encourage the women’s empowerment practices and to promote gender equality around the world. It gives a summary of the entity’s financial statements, presents a list of new programmes and projects, as well as present/update the entity’s contact information. The period considered in this study is from 2010 to 2018. The UN Women was fundamentally created to invest in women, as they (women) are seen as potential supports and help to their families,100 of which through them their families, communities as well as countries could be rescued from poverty. Thus UN women is committed to seeing that this is realised. According to the UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet,
“We undermine the quality of our democracy, the strength of our economy, the health of our society, as well as peace sustainability when we (the society) fail to fully tap the talent and potentials of half of the world.101”
UN Women is therefore committed support and ensure faster progress towards gender equality by empowering women politically, economically and otherwise. Thus, the aim the UN Women annual report is
99 UN Women, Annual report. http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/annual-report 100 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Consensus on Equality – Foreword - Annual Report 2010 – 2011 101 UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet – A Turning Point for Women – Foreword – Annual Report 2010-2011 51 to track the progress made each year in its work towards ending gender equality. The main focus of this analysis will be on the priority areas where the entity focuses most of its attention to making sure that the changes occur, the funding of women in different regions of the world.
Priority Areas of Entity’s Intervention
Increasing Women’s Leadership and Participation: Women all over the world have the potential of becoming dynamic leaders and powerful advocates for change,102 however, they are faced with constrained leadership space and poor level of political participation. For instance, only about twenty eight (28) could boast of have up to 30% or more of women parliamentary representation by mid-2011, and only nineteen (19) women worldwide occupied elective positions (heads of state or government) in their countries. Thus, one of UN Women’s goals is to supports countries around the world to increase women’s political leadership, through several of its initiatives such as training programs which provide women with election candidature and effective politicians’ skills, as well as ensuring that the management of elections responds to women’s concerns. The UN Women’s work mostly covers the following regions from ear to year:
Arab States: Women in Tunisia were assisted by the entity during its (Tunisia’s) political transition. The aim of this was to ensure that there was political parity during this transition phase, a consensus was reached that women must comprise 50% of candidates for Constituent Assembly elections. This move by the entity set a huge standard for the Arab regions and the larger world. The entity continued to provide support to ensure that Tunisian women’s groups refresh their democracy skills, which underwent long years of political oppression, by deploying experts to the Tunisian region to advise them on making gender concerns central to transitional justice and reconciliation processes.103 Another move by the entity was during the aftermath of the revolution in Egypt, by supporting a coalition of five hundred (500) women’s groups. The coalition supported by the UN Women aimed at building consensus to launch Egyptian women’s charter which was eventually launched in June of 2011. The charter was about ensuring women’s fair representation throughout the democratization process in the country.
Africa: The entity manages a gender and governance programme in Kenya. Through this programme, the Kenyan Women Parliamentary association has received support to successfully advocate for strong new gender equality provisions, which includes affirmative action in the 2010 constitution.
Latin America and the Caribbean: The entity also made a great move in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean, by sponsoring training programmes (to empower women on their right to gain justice, get involved in political decision-making, and shape public policies) for the women of six Andean and Central American countries in 2010. These training programmes equipped the participants with
102 UN Women Annual Report 2010 - 2011 103 UN Women Annual Report 2010 – 2011 52 leadership skills and also became aware of their individual and collective rights.104 Through the trainings provided by the entity, the participants in Guatemala used the skills acquired to advocate for amending electoral and political party laws to support the achievement of ethnic and gender equity.
Europe and CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States): In 2010, the entity supported Georgia to enact a new gender equality law which strengthens women’s political participation, promotes gender equality in the labour market. The entity also helped the Judicial Academy in Serbia to adopt a new curriculum on the application of international and national legislation on women’s rights – covering issues such as property and labour rights, as well as anti-discrimination statutes.
Enhancing Women’s Economic Empowerment: Apart from political empowerment, the entity also advocates for economic empowerment as women’s right, which is seen as a huge benefit for societies and economies. Up to 50% of women in the world are doing vulnerable jobs with very little income – thus gender wage gaps are still between 10 – 30% on average.105 UN Women has therefore assists countries enact laws and policies to increase women’s access to economic resources, as well as establish services that support sustainable livelihoods. The entity thus provided an informal cross-border trade program in fifteen (15) African countries. As a result of this, there was the formation of the first Association of Women in Cross- Border Trade in Liberia in 2010 – this association helps to organize traders and advocate for their issues.
The entity in partnership with the ILO (International Labour Organization) and national governments, is providing supports for to a group of women (domestic workers) to fight for change in Latin America. Being the least paid and most vulnerable employees, the UN Women help to link these domestic workers to each other across Latin America and the Caribbean, and support them in lobbying for their rights. The domestic workers from Brazil, Bolivia, Guatemala and Paraguay joined the international advocacy for a global International Labour convention in 2010 – where they will have their rights upheld. More trainings are continuously sponsored by the entity – and trainings are centred on national labour laws – and would help equip advocates to call on employers to comply with labour standards.
Engaging Women in Peace and Security Responses: Women are involved in various unpleasant circumstances, however, they still have the ability to put together families, homes and communities, yet these same women are denied a seat at peace talks. For the past 26 years, less than 10% of women have been found at peace negotiation. As a result of this, the UN Women is working to see that such imbalance is rectify according to the UN resolution (the Security Council Resolution 1325), which encourages the full participation of women in every aspect of peace and reconstruction. The entity has so far made tremendous move across the globe – in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean as well as global coverage, by
104 UN Women Annual Report 2010 – 2011 105 UN Women Annual report 2010 - 2011 53 supporting women to participate in post-conflict processes – which in turn is capable of creating opportunities to have political discourse re-addressed in the favour of the cause of gender equality. This move has thus far been helpful for a country like Sudan – where women’s ability to run as effective candidates was improved, their representation in electoral bodies was encouraged and as well supported their voter and civic education.
The entity has also stood by women in post conflict countries to seek for justice for wartime acts and crimes, through such means as reparations. In Guatemala for instance, the entity supported women’s advocate in 2010 to call for justice for women who survived wartime sexual violence through its first Court of Conscience convention, where the jury, after considering the evidence presented by the women, judged that such action was inadequate by the state. At the global level, the entity went into partnership with the UN Peacebuilding Support Office – which will help bring the UN system into coordinated operations as specific elements of peace-building.
The UN Women’s Fund for Gender Equality and Women Empowerment
The entity’s multi-donor Fund for Gender Equality and Women Empowerment was established in 2009 as it aims to support women achieve political and economic empowerment. Political empowerment projects focus on increasing women’s political participation, making policies and laws more responsive to women, as well as expanding access to justice. The Fund was successfully created with donations from generous donors of which Spain donated $65 million, Norway donated $3.5 million and Mexico donated $800,000. After the fund was created, the entity began approving grants for projects in different regions, - including Africa, the Arab States, Asia and the Pacific, Europe/CIS countries, as well as to Latin America and the Caribbean. Since the Funds creation in 2009, it has disbursed over $84 million USD into 121 grants to civil society organizations across 80 countries.106 The disbursed funds are broken down in the table below for each year after the funds creation in 2009.
Table 7: Table 7: Breakdown of UN Women Fund for Gender Equality and Women Empowerment 2010 - 2017
Year No. Of Beneficiaries (Active No. Of Women Reached Amount disbursed (in Programmes Funded) millions of USD $) 2010 40 - 27.5 2011 47 23,000 4.85 2012 54 29,166 17 2013 69 40,000 8.8 2014 67 210,000 7.4
106 UN Women Annual Report 2017 - 2018 54
2015 53 (active prog) + 24 new grants 218,000 7.6 (for active prog) + 7.3 (for new grants) 2016 35 50,700 4.4 2017 26 49,000 8.1 Source: Annual Reports UN Women 2010 – 2017
The table above shows the funding of different initiatives by the UN Women (entity for Gender Equality and Women Empowerment) from 2010 to 2017. The Fund provides grants to governments and civil society organizations in order to enhance women’s political as well as economic empowerment.107 The fund for each year is disbursed to initiatives in different countries – to active programmes as well as new initiatives. The grants and beneficiary organizations are further broken down into specific initiatives and countries of beneficiaries (Please see annex for details).
Strategic Plan 2018 – 2021
The UN-Women’s Strategic Plan 2018-2021 articulates the Entity’s strategic direction, objectives and approaches to support efforts to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by 2030. It reflects on the lessons learned from the previous Strategic Plan and therefore builds on recommendations from the 20-year review and appraisal of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The plan further highlights UN-Women’s contribution to the gender-responsive enactment of the 2030 Plan for Sustainable development, and spells out how UN-Women intends to leverage its comparative and collaborative advantages to accelerate the achievement of results for women and girls. The entity’s main focus area for the years ahead include:
Eradicating poverty: The entity aims to achieve this by promoting more policies for decent work and social protection for women by addressing women‘s disproportional share of unpaid domestic and care work, as well as promoting the voice and representation for women through trade unions.108 Furthermore, the entity seeks to ensure women‘s access to digital, financial, technical, vocational education as well as opportunity for trainings – to expand women‘s scope of self-owned enterprises. Ensuring that more rural women have access to land and get involved in sustainable agriculture to increase their income security, work conditions and be less prone to the effect of climate change, easy access to information, financial support and availability, access to markets as well as vita infrastructure services like water, energy and telecommunications, are all part of the entity’s framework to eradicating poverty for the years 2018 - 2021.
Achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls: The entity seeks to be the trusted partner of choice for all countries on the issue of gender parity and the empowerment of women, and
107 UN Women Annual Report – 2013 - 2014 108 United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women). Strategic Plan 2018 - 2021 55 also seeks to recognize strategic and catalytic partnerships at all levels, in order to support movements for gender equality and women’s empowerment, carry out a movement to promote women’s empowerment and gender equality from decision-makers at all levels, increase constituencies coverage for women empowerment and gender equality, collaborate with partners to eradicate discriminatory social norms.
Ensuring gender availability and the use of disaggregated data for sustainable development: UN Women will ensure that more women of all ages fully take part, lead and engage in political institutions and processes. The entity will also support political decision-making bodies such as parliaments, local governments and political parties; encourage a gender-balanced, gender-sensitive approach, promote more women’s networks and see to it that they address certain stereotypes working against women’s leadership; recognizing men and boys and encouraging their engagement; ensuring that women (whether indigenous and disabled) have access to reach decision-making positions.109 More on this, the UN Women will in the coming years ensure that the advancement on women’s empowerment and gender equality is tracked using the entity’s disaggregated data and statistics – such includes supporting the transition of tier three of SDG indicators to tier two (see annexes for Global SDG Indicators Tier Classification).
3.1.2. USAID – Summary Report of the WiP Project The WiP project is one of the USAID programmes which provides the strategies and insights to empowering women for political participation; the project provides women with necessary skills and experiences needed in political process, as well as train them to develop the willingness to run for and serve in public office. Through the WiP project, there are two tools which the project introduced which if applied would increase the number of women leaders – these tools are referred to as ‘best practices’ identified by the project. The tools include the supply and demand side strategies to increase the number of women in political parties as well as the DLM. In the supply-demand side strategies, the WiP outlines major steps to be taken in order for political parties to have the most qualified and ready to run women politicians. Some of the steps include:
Training: Training women leaders and candidates will provide them with the necessary resources and skills to political process. This is considered as the basic step of women’s political empowerment – women who are equipped with the right skills will emerge as successful female politicians, and will be confident in running for any political office. The mode of training these women includes training them over a sustained period of time will create continuity and will allow time for skills and capacities to develop with practice; offering trainings after elections in order to find out what worked and didn’t work for them during the elections period etc.
109 United Nations – Executive Board of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women; Strategic Plan 2018 – 2021. 56
Campaign for Finance: Providing women with financial resources is key to empowering them. Most women are not interested in running for any political office because of how expensive it takes to run campaigns. Thus women need financial support to be confident in political process. Women need to be trained to fundraise, and establishing fundraising networks would also help to support women candidates.
The second tool which is the Diamond Leadership Model is a tool used in measuring women’s political leadership. This tool measures women leadership from four different angles of government horizontally and vertically. The horizontal angles include the legislative, executive, judicial and security sectors, and the vertical angle includes the leadership positions in high, middle and low level. From the WiP project, women were found to;
i. Represent appointive positions than elective positions ii. They are more likely to occupy collective positions than solo leadership positions
The model therefore proofs that it is possible to execute a multi-sector, multi-level model of women’s leadership and also offers new insights into women’s political empowerment.
3.2. Analysis of the prospects to increase Women’s Political Participation in Lithuania and Nigeria This section will analyse the prospect of attaining equal participation of women in political process in Lithuania as well as Nigeria. This will be determined by a careful analysis of the speeches made by the Presidents of both countries during the different sessions of the United Nations General Assembly world leaders’ debate. The aim of this is to understand how both countries include the fight against gender inequality in their various action plan. Analysis of the survey questionnaire will also be carried out in this section. A survey was created in order to examine the different perspective of people on gender and politics. The results of the survey will present a clear understanding of what the future holds for women and political participation, and will also help determine whether or not IOs are faced with enormous challenges as they (IOs) seek to empower women’s political participation.
3.2.1. Analysis of Speeches made by presidents of Lithuania and Nigeria during the UNGA world leaders general debates The statements of the presidents of Lithuania and Nigeria during different sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations General Debates of the 193 heads of member countries. The time framework and the number of speeches evaluated is from the 64th session of the UN General Assembly to the 73rd session (from 2009 to 2018) which is made up of 10 speeches delivered by the presidents of each country. The aim of this evaluation is to understand how both countries tackle the issue of gender equality(which is the bedrock of creating inclusion for women in all aspect of the society – especially in politics), how often they address and include it in their action plan not just on the national level but also on the international and global level. After 57 carefully reading through and listening to the speeches by the presidents of both countries, the following analysis is drawn:
Table 8: Analysing the speeches of the Presidents of the Republic of Lithuania and the Federal Republic of Nigeria during 10 consecutive sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations
Session/Year Country (Speech addresses gender related issues) Lithuania Nigeria 64th Session – 2009 Gender issues wasn‘t addressed Gender issues not addressed 65th Session – 2010 Gender equality was addressed Gender issues not addressed 66th Session – 2011 Women inclusion in peace-building and Encouraged gender equality and decision making was addressed women empowerment, commended the creation of the UN Women 67th Session – 2012 Gender-related issues not addressed Women health-related issue was addressed 68th Session – 2013 Gender-related issues not addresses Gender-related issues not addressed 69th Session – 2014 Gender-related issues not addressed Gender-related issues not addressed 70th Session – 2015 Gender issues not addressed Gender-related issues not addressed 71st Session – 2016 Women empowerment, women and girls Gender-related issues not addressed right and gender equality was largely addressed 72nd Session – 2017 Gender-related issues not addressed Need for gender equality was addressed 73rd Session – 2018 Gender issues and need for women Gender equality, inclusiveness and empowerment was addressed women empowerment was addressed Number of time Gender-related issue 4 4 was addressed Source: Created by Author
The table above presents information on how often the leaders of the respective countries mentioned above (Lithuania and Nigeria) often address the issue of gender and women empowerment whether economic, social or political empowerment and the need to end gender inequality in the society.
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3.2.2. The methodology of speeches analysis The method employed in mapping out the above information is through the use of the General Assembly of the United Nations Official Website. On the Organization’s website, ten (10) different sessions of the General Assembly where all leaders/heads of state or representatives of all member countries gather to discuss major improvements over the years and area of concern which each nation is focused of improving. Hence, the speeches that were analysed were those from Lithuanian and Nigerian leaders, which is because these countries are the main focus of this study. The speeches analysed were those from the 64th session up to the just concluded 73rd session, from 2009 to 2018, the General Assembly is held every September through October of every year. The mode of analysing these speeches were listening to the audio, watching the video as well as reading the materials of each speech. The main aim of analysing these speeches was to understand how each country view gender inequality and how willing they are to fight against inequality in our society. Also, the analyses was made to understand if the level of women in decision-making position or women directly participating in politics in each country is dependent of how open the countries are open to the international community in discussing about the need to tackle gender inequality and create inclusion for women in all decision-making platform.
The analysis shows that both countries are concerned about ending gender equality. However, this isn’t their prior focus as they constantly mentioned this at the end of every speech if at all mentioned. The analysis shows that the two countries (and probably all other nations) are more concerned about nation building, peace and security issues. Nevertheless, the Lithuanian president in her speech during the 71st session of the General Assembly which was held in September 2016 clearly stated that the world’s future can only be truly sustainable only if all members of the society – both women and men – are fully represented and engaged.110 She further noted how this could be attained by dedicating special attention to women by ending poverty (as women are usually hardly and badly affected by poverty), ending hunger (noting that women are the pioneer of agricultural work around the world, yet are the ones who suffer most if food is running out, and they also do not have enough ownership of lands), and finally she encouraged that education be provided especially to girls and women (as they are often left out, and sometimes given to early marriages).
The results of this analysis show that in the present times, majority of countries in the world are in one way or the other promoting and empowering women to participate in political processes. In the case of Nigeria for instance, there is a policy environment that appears to support gender equality. The country (Nigeria) does not only seem to support the idea, but it is also a signatory to a lot of international conventions
110 Statement by the President of the Republic of Lithuania Mr. Dalia Grybauskaite at the 71st Session General Debate of the United Nations General Assembly (September 2016). 59 on gender equality and women empowerment.111 Moreover, there are vibrant institutional structure established in the country for the development and implementation of gender policies, of which the institutions are being coordinated by the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs. Again, both government and non-governmental institutions tend to be concerned about gender issues and are also working towards gender mainstreaming in their respective activities. The same goes for Lithuania, considering the fact that presently the first person in the country which is the President is a women (even though she is the first female president of the country), one might begin to think that there are so many women in the system, however, that is not the case as women are still under-represented in the political positions. Moreover, Lithuania has recently become one of the countries where gender issues and the topic of women’s political voices are widely discussed,112 various programmes to empower women to take part in politics are being held; it hasn’t still changed how under-represented women are in the parliament.
The bottom-line is that the government, NGOs, IOs, Regional Organizations and all responsible bodies as well as individuals need to stand up, identify and tackle the main cause of persistent gender disparity in our society and the resulting boomerang of women’s low representation in politics. Studies have found that one major setback for women is being financially handicapped. Thus, it is pertinent to focus on expanding women’s political resources by educating them, providing them with sufficient mentoring by experts, expanding their networks, as well as providing them with enough financial support (Orji et. al. 2018).
3.2.3. Survey Analysis A survey questionnaire was created and distributed to participants. The main aim of creating the survey was to understand the opinion of the masses regarding gender issues. Given that this study employed two case countries, the survey targeted the population of these two countries. Thus, survey was distributed mainly to the Lithuanian and Nigerian population. Social media platform (mainly Facebook) was used in distributing the survey, making a public post as well as sending it individually to people (specifically Lithuanians and Nigerians). More than a hundred participants were reached, however, sixty five (65) of them participated in the survey of which the total of forty six [46 (15 and 31) are Lithuanians and Nigerians respectively, the rest of the participants are from other nationalities. Out of the sixty five (65) who participated in the survey, 70.77% of the participants completed the survey, the remaining 29.23% started but did not complete it. The survey responses were therefore exported to an excel document, where they are sorted and information is converted into charts for easy analysis and interpretation of the results. The survey aims to answer the following research question;
111 Nkwachukwu Orji, PhD et. al. (2018). Women Politial Representation In Nigeria: Why progress is slow and what can be done to fast-track it. 112 Simona Stankevicius (2012). Lithuanian Women in the Parliament: Access and participation in post-socialist politics. 60
- What are the major challenges international organizations face while addressing issues of women political participation? - Can Women Political Empowerment help end gender inequality in the future?
The reason why this survey will address the above questions is because of the opinion of the masses. Positive responses will indicate that less challenges for IOs and a higher prospects to end gender inequality in the future. However, if the survey results point to the negative, it will indicate more challenging situation for IOs and a bleak future of attaining gender equality. To analyse the survey results, the segments which are most important and most relevant to answering the above research questions will be analysed first. Starting with the gender of respondents, the chart below shows the rate of different genders who participated in the survey:
Figure 6: Respondents’ Gender (from survey)
Respondents' Gender
39% Male Female 61%
Source: Created by author (data from survey)
The figure above shows that a higher percentage of males participated in the survey, thus, their opinion about gender equality and women empowerment will strongly determine if the fight to reach gender equality is only on women or if men are also a part of that fight. 61% of the survey participants were males while females only comprised of 39% of the participants. Thus, the overall opinion of participants in the survey will be treated as unbiased. Let’s take a look at another important factor included in the survey – the age of participants;
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Figure 7: Respondents’ age
Respondents' Age
5%0%
35%
60%
18 - 25 26 - 35 36 - 45 46 and above
Source: Created by Author (data from survey)
Age of respondents is another determining factor to evaluate the effective cause of gender equality. The percentage of youths who are interested in attaining gender equality determines the future of women and the gender gap. From the figure above there is a high probability that gender equality could or could not be attained in the future, as a higher percentage of the respondents falls between the ages of 26 – 35, the most active youthful age. Moreover, majority of respondents were fall in the category of students (please see figure below);
Figure 8: Respondents’ occupation
Respondents' Occupation
30 27
25 23
20
15 10 10
5 0 0 Student Enployed Self employed Unemployed
Source: Created by Author (data from survey)
A larger percentage of respondents classified themselves as students. Out of the sixty five (65) total number of respondents, twenty seven (27) of them (45%) fall under the category of students, followed by twenty 62 three (23) (38%) of those employed and only 17%, ten (10) are self-employed while none identified as unemployed. This therefore means that there is a high probability that respondents truly understands the need to empower women and to create inclusion for them in all spheres of the society. Thus, the opinion of this set of the population – positively or negatively, will greatly impact the future of women empowerment and the end of gender inequality and will also determine the level of challenges faced by International Organizations or any other concerned body in the fight to end gender inequality through women empowerment. A further look at another factor will help to further understand the participants’ opinions and concern, the following figure shows the level of respondents’ interest in political process.
Figure 9: Rate of respondents interested in politics
Interested in Politics?
26% 37%
37%
Yes No Not sure
Source: Created by Author (data from survey)
From the figure above, the rate of participants interested in politics equal the rate of those not interested with 37% each, while 26% claim they are not sure if they are interested in politics. This is an interesting factor and would raise such question as – would those not interested in politics ever want to encourage the participation of women in politics? Would it not be difficult for any concerned organization to empower women political participation if almost a half of the population are not interested in politics? Well, let’s take a look at the next survey question and find out what participant think about gender and politics.
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Figure 10: Respondents’ response on whether or not gender matter in politics
Does Gender matter in Politics?
23%
77%
Yes No
Source: Created by Author (data from survey)
The above figure demonstrates that even though a high number of respondents have no interest in politics, they however believe that gender doesn’t matter when it comes to participating in politics. 77% of respondents believe that gender does not matter in politics – mostly stating that whoever is interested in politics has the right to participate in it, however, 23% of participants believe that it does matter when it comes to politics – with the same old argument that women who participate in politics do not have the time to take care of her home, the issues of traditional values and norms113, what the society is expected of them are still strongly held by a certain percentage of people. Even though the difference in respondents’ opinions does not necessarily pose a negative threat to the future of women and politics, the few who believe that gender matters in politics – in other words, women to them should not be involved in politics could pose a serious challenge to organizations that is committed to empowering women political participation. Moreover, the societal norms, community expectations, and family conservativeness have gone a long way in shaping the mind-set of majority of women. For instance, female survey participants were asked if they would like to run for a political office, and men were asked if they would support the female relatives who expresses interest to run for a political office – the responses from both groups show that women are deeply influenced by the society norms, the figures below explains the females and males participants’ responses:
113 Nkwachukwu Orji, Chukwuemeka Orji and Oluchi Agbanyim (2018). Women’s Political Representation in Nigeria: Why Progress is slow and what can be done to fast-track it. 64
Figures 11a & 11b: Women and Men opinions on political participation
Would you run for a political Would you allow or support a woman office? (Women) to run for a political office?
15, 35% 36% 44% 25, 58% 20% 3, 7%
Yes No Not sure Yes No It depends
Source: Created by Author (data from survey)
One of the major challenges which International Organizations are faced with in their work to empower women whether politically, economically or socially is the perception of the society. This perception also has shaped majority of women, making them accept the belief that as women, they are not supposed to be in such positions as political leadership positions. Thus, International organizations will have to work more on training women and equipping them with the necessary skills required.
Taking a further look at what respondents think when it comes to women empowerment, a good number of them encourage women’s empowerment. Nevertheless, they believe that women should not only be politically empowered, but they also need to be economically and socially empowered. The chart below demonstrates respondents’ opinion on how women should be empowered for the betterment of the society.
Figure 12: Respondents’ opinion regarding areas of women empowerment
Best way to empower women
6% 12% Political Empowerment 10% Economic Empowerment 6% Social Empowerment All 66% None
Source: Created by Author (data from survey)
Majority of respondents believe that WPE alone is not enough, just as economic and social empowerment are not independently regarded as being sufficient. Thus, women need to be empowered in all areas in the 65 society. Studies have found that poverty, lack of financial resources, low income as well as violence are the main barriers to women under-representation in politics,114 therefore empowering women in all sectors would help build them up for political process. Women empowerment in every sector could offer women more confidence and more opportunity to advocate for equal right – gender equality. However, gender equality could be attained if the society gradually create equal opportunity for men and women in every sector, in the parliament, in the work place, in political parties etc. This could also make room for more women in leadership roles globally. Let’s take a look at what participants think about women advocacy for equal seats in the parliament.
Figure 13: Do women have the right to advocate for equal seats in the Parliament?
Do women have the right to advocate for equal seats?
11% 6% Yes No Maybe 83%
Source: Created by Author (data from survey)
From the above chart, majority of participants (83%) agree that women have the right to advocate for equal seats in the Parliament. Moreover, respondents expressed their dissatisfaction in the type of (patriarchal) leadership there in the world – and believe that if more women take up leadership roles, things would be different, there world would experience more peace than it stands now. The survey responses show that 60% of respondents expressed their dissatisfaction while another larger percentage (36%) do not care about the leadership in our world today (see figure below).
114 Simona Stankevicius (2012). Lithuanian women in the Parliament: Access and participation in post-socialist politics 66
Figure 14: The rate of respondents’ satisfaction with the world’s leadership system
Satisfied with the type of leadership in th world today?
4%
36% Yes No
60% I don’t care
Source: Created by Author (data from survey)
Most of the opinions raised by respondents include that women should assume more leadership roles, this could be seen in the chart above, where 60% of the respondents said that they are not satisfied with the type of leadership in the world today. The respondents believe that women have the potential to build a world free of war, conflicts and crisis between nations, and thus should be given the chance to be part of major roles in the political system.
This survey examined the general overview of the opinion of the general public about gender and politics. It is clear from the analysis of this survey that even though majority of the respondents are positive about gender in politics, in other words, women political participation is somewhat accepted in the society, there is however some setbacks which have caused and might continue to cause women political under- representation to persist. Some of these setbacks could be found in those few respondents who think that it is ok for the world to remain patriarchal in nature. Again, from the survey, women especially have proven to shy away from political process, which could be as a result of the norms of the society which they have accustomed to, thus, if women are not ready to get involved, the world will definitely remain in the state which it currently is. Finally, these setbacks could serve as a serious challenge for international organizations to function effectively in their activities to empower women political participation.
According to the IR theories applied in this study (Feminists and Institutionalist Theories), IOs just as described by the Institutionalists Theory play a primary role in shaping women when it comes to political process. IOs act as catalysts to promoting women’s political empowerment, thus through their empowerment practices, IOs provide the necessary support needed by women to participate in politics. Moreover, IOs have the sole right to interfere in state’s policies which are not in favour of women in political pursuits. Feminist Theory of IR on the other hand present various reasons why women face setbacks in political participation
67 and how to deal with them. As posited by different feminists approach, lack of education, high poverty rate/financial instability among women, as well as patriarchal nature of society, all act as hindrances to women political participation Thus, providing more access to women’s education in relevant fields, reducing gender gap in the society by including women in different decision-making processes, providing women with equal paid job opportunities like men, and providing such empowerment that will improve women’s financial state are all necessary to enhancing their political empowerment.
This chapter provides an overall empirical analysis of International organizations practices, what they have done, are doing, and will do in the future to empower women political participation through the analysis of Organizations’ strategic documents. Furthermore, the case countries Lithuania and Nigeria are also analysed, to understand how both countries address the issue of women empowerment and gender equality in their action plan. Finally, the survey questionnaire is also analysed in this chapter, the opinion of survey participants on gender and politics, women political leadership and women empowerment. The subsequent chapter will present findings and discussion on entire study.
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4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION This chapter serves as the final chapter of this thesis and will present the findings from the above empirical analysis. The aim of this is to clearly present the results of research and to address all research question as discussion progresses.
In the course of writing this thesis, it has been found that women’s political participation is not significantly improving due to certain setbacks. Various factors such as women’s lack of proper education, lack of financial resources, lack of family and societal support, the inherent patriarchal nature of the society and lots more are the main hindrance to women’s political participation; hence IOs do not only have to focus on women’s political empowerment, but rather on other empowerment such as economic and social empowerment – to provide women with the environment to become financially independent, equip them with the necessary skills for decision making and influence the state policies which contain sexually discriminating rules, and reform such in the favour of women. With these actions, women will have a better environment to thrive and become part of political processes.
Another finding drawn from this paper explains that International Organizations (the UN and USAID) are very practical about women empowerment. Both organizations are found to be doing great in their fight to end gender inequality by empowering women to take part in all areas of the society. The thesis is therefore focused on these organizations’ practices to politically empower women. From the empirical analysis of the organizations, it has been found that International Organization (as used in this study for UN and USAID) have special organs or bodies which focus specifically on empowering women and eradicating gender gap in all sectors of the society. These organs of organizations are therefore responsible for implementing various programmes and strategies used for empowering women in political participation. The programmes may range from trainings, policy making or policy restructuring to providing funding to various initiatives to promote women political empowerment and fight against gender inequality. Hence, International Organizations responds to the issues of empowerment of women political participation by providing various opportunities for women to receive trainings on political issues; they also respond through different funding mechanisms. One of the major ways IOs provide funding is by supporting already existing initiatives in different regions of the world by funding their programmes and projects to favour the cause of women empowerment, as well as launching new initiatives where necessary. The analysis carried out on the UN entity for Gender Equality and Women Empowerment popularly known as the UN Women provides a detailed approach on how organization funds initiatives (see annex for detailed information on organization’s funding). Moreover, IOs work hand-in-hand with numerous locally and internationally-based organizations. This affiliation with other organizations provide IOs with all necessary information about what needs to be done in order to empower the women of specific regions, at the time and period which empowerment is
69 highly needed for women. Through these various ways, IOs can easily manage to respond to women political empowerment issues at international as well as national levels.
By analysing the case countries (Lithuania and Nigeria), it was found that even though both countries do address the issue of women empowerment and fight to end gender inequality, they are however not doing enough in practical terms as the rate of women in the parliament and Senate remain fluctuating. Hence, there has not been any improvement over the past decade in the number of women in political positions (both appointive and elective positions) – in the parliament (in the case of Lithuania) and in the House of Representative/Senate (in the case of Nigeria).
Finally, the survey analysis provided more insight into the perspective of the masses on the issue of women political empowerment and gender equality. The survey covers a range of issues with the main aim of understanding what people’s opinion are regarding gender and politics. The survey provides a concurrent position to the point raised above – which states that the society is strongly addressing the issue of women empowerment, however, very little or no practical step is taken to actualizing it. Majority of survey participants encourage women empowerment at all levels, they support the movement to gender equality, the would like to see more women in leadership positions, they believe that politics is not meant for only one gender – all these and many more points raised by participants sounds like everyone is ready to take action to create inclusion for women in decision-making. This could be so, however, the traditional norms of the society has already created a mind-set in the people and this serves as a barrier to women political empowerment. This leads to answering the question about the challenges IOs face while addressing the issues of women political participation. Even though majority of respondents were positive about women political empowerment, a lot of women who participated in the survey responded that they are not interested in politics and would not run for any political office – this is as a result of the norms that they have been living by and known all their lives that women are not supposed to be in the spotlight. This serves as a major challenge to IOs, and it means that a lot of trainings, educating need to be done to be able to make positive impact on women’s decision to participate in politics. On the other hand, looking into the future, one could say that women political participation would make a huge impact in the fight to end gender inequality, with the help of IOs and other organizations. This is because the fight to end gender inequality and the need for women empowerment is increasing, and from the survey responses, majority of young people are all in support of women political empowerment.
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CONCLUSIONS This thesis study reveals the practices of International Organizations to empower women in political participation. The United Nations (UN) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) are addressed as IOs in this study. Two case countries, Nigeria and Lithuania were analysed in this study, thus, the following conclusion is drawn;
1. Women are very much under-represented in political participation despite the long call for women empowerment. The societies are still patriarchal in nature and political parties remain male- dominated in terms of who makes-decision and who occupy the leadership roles. Gender discrimination in political offices is a thing of concern for women even though women constitute about half the population of the world. According to previous study, “Political empowerment of women starts with understanding the political and economic context in which they operate, and also rigorous gender analysis, and requires a comprehensive approach to programming that looks beyond the legislature.”115 The aim of women political empowerment is more than just having women in elective or appointive positions, or attaining at least 30% presence of women in the national legislative – these are but a part of it; the ultimate goal of women political empowerment is focused on women’s effort to make their voices heard (USAID, Women in Power Project Summary Report). 2. According to the Feminist Theory of International Relations, there are different reasons why women’s representation in political process is low. One of the reasons is posited by the Radical Feminist approach which says that women under-representation in politics is as a result of the inherent sexual discrimination and the patriarchal system of the society, believing that getting rid of patriarchy is one way of empowering women. Another reason is one posited by Liberal Feminists, who believe that women’s low participation in politics is as a result of the poor educational background of most women; thus, they believe that educational reform for women is a way to get more women into the political spotlight. Finally, as posited by Socialist Feminists, poverty or financial instability is the main reason why there is a lack of women in political process, thus, economic empowerment is the base to ensuring that women are financially independent, which in turn will increase their participation in politics. The findings from this thesis however proof that the low-representation of women in politics is not only due to one of the above stated reasons by different feminists approach, but these reasons are collectively a catalyst to women low political representation. Thus, women need to be empowered by providing them access to quality, sound and relevant education, economic empowerment for financial stability, and the fight to end gender gap in the society by getting women involved in decision-making process – reducing patriarchy.
115 Melanie M. Hughes, Darcy Ashman and Milad Pournik (2016) – Women in Power Project Summary Report, prepared for review by the USAID. 71
3. Institutionalist Theory as implemented in this thesis, helps us understand the roles institutions or organizations (as used in this paper) play in the society. Feminist Institutionalism is one of the waves of Institutionalist Theory, which outlines how institutions continuously affect the daily lives of different groups of people – men and women differently. Studies have found that women political participation can be rightly addressed with considerable presence of women in the legislative and decision making institutions.116 On this basis, International Organizations have implemented several programs that provide training for women, especially women in isolated areas who continuously feel oppressed in the society they live in, and cannot be heard. Empowering women is a good strategy to give them a voice and a place in the society, however so much need to be done in order to successfully empower women to participate in political process. 4. Women are being side-lined from participating in politics because of the norms imbedded in our society; the idea that good women are not to be in the spotlight; that women have specific roles to play – such as centred around family, child bearing and rearing etc. – these beliefs are not only held by men against women, they are also held by women themselves and this to a large extent is like a barrier to their political life. 5. Poverty is another serious factor holding back women in political participation. Economic empowerment is therefore an important measure that could boost women political empowerment. In the course of this study, it was discovered that women have a higher risk and are more prone to poverty than men. Moreover, the gender gap in every sector of the society contributes to a high poverty rate among women – women are mostly offered less paid jobs and sometimes they are subjected to non-paid home-keeping job. A resounding economic empowerment of women is key to financial freedom and the ability to get actively involved in political processes. 6. One way of empowering women to increase their financial status is what most IOs such as the UN entity for Gender Equality and Women Empower (UN Women) is engaged in. The UN Women funds numerous initiatives in remotes places and crisis affected regions where women are the major victims of such crisis; these initiatives then offer vocational trainings to women which equip them with entrepreneurial skills to enable them become financially independent. 7. A country’s population does not determine the rate of women who participate in political processes. This thesis shows that even though the two case countries employed in this study are distinctively different in terms of size and population, they are both faced with the under-representation of women in the parliament and senate. From the statistics gathered for this study, it has been found that for the period of ten (10) which was examined, the representation of women in politics was never progressive, but rather fluctuating, thus – both countries do not have sufficient number of women in
116 Amna Mahmood. Ploitical Empowerment of Women: A Competitive Study of South Asian Countries. Pakistan Vision Vol. 10 No. 1 72
decision-making positions. Moreover, looking at the Lithuanian Government, one might think that having a female president would mean having a high number of women in the parliament, it is however not so. Which leads to the point previously made – that societal norms still play a huge part in our society which keeps women away from political participation. 8. Finally, it is pertinent to mention that our society is very much supportive of the idea of women empowerment and the fight to eliminate gender inequality, therefore with the increasing effort and continuous work of International Organizations, empowering women economically, socially and politically could lead to attaining gender equality – however, every government, organizations, as well as individuals are required to be committed to this and be practical as well.
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RECOMMENDATIONS This thesis was conducted to understand the major practices implemented by IOs in order to empower women in political participation, as well as promote gender equality in all spheres of the society. Thus, some recommendations which covers both countries are drawn below:
1. In order to follow up and track the progress of women in political participation, IOs should create a statistical database on women’s political participations. 2. IOs should create mechanisms which promote the educational level of women and girls as well as reducing the weight of substantial workload; moreover, women should be empowered to have the liberty to free up their time and stay away from household chores. Literacy campaign should be considered being organized for both men and women – to include components of political and civic education, the family code, resource management as well as family planning. 3. Creating networks and alliances among women in order to develop joint programmes which highlights women’s priorities and also encourage the women in elected positions of power to commit themselves to those positions. Such networks and alliances include putting in place permanent structure for consultation between women politician and those from civil society. 4. Implement specific concrete actions to encourage women’s political participation – developing partnerships between women’s organizations and men who are committed to gender equality and are as well sensitive, such as - politicians, religious leaders, customary and civil society leader, in order to strengthen advocacy for women’s increased participation in political life and for gender equality. 5. IOs ought to promote the concept that every government should respect its commitments on the national, regional and international level, as this would contribute to attaining gender equality. The support of these IOs is essential to enable both countries (Lithuania and Nigeria) to meet their commitments on equal representation of both genders in political decision making positions. In that sense, respect for gender equality should be a measure for testing if both countries are eligible for cooperation with international platforms. Capacity building for women is another important aspect that requires IOs support – focusing mainly on building women’s skills for political participations. 6. IOs should create awareness programme as well as a continued education for local communities on the empowerment of women – which would serve as a huge support for progress and reducing resistance to change. Moreover, family discussions should be included in the programme in order to create awareness among families to educate their daughters to the highest level ever possible. 7. Finally IOs should make the link between local and global level actors by bringing them together and implementing a common ideal that would serve women’s organisations, local communities and wider civil society alike; and also functioning to encourage women’s participation in light of national reconstruction.
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REFERENCES Book(s)
1. The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C. 2001. Improving Democracy Assistance: Building Knowledge through Evaluations and Research. www.nap.edu 2. Julie Ballington (2012). Empowering Women for Stronger Political Parties – A guidebook to promote Women’s Political Participation. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and National Democratic Institute for International Development (NDI).
Journal(s)
3. The Economist (2009). The Glass Ceiling. https://www.economist.com/node/13604240.
Scientific articles
4. Joanna Hoare and Fiona Gell (2008). Women’s Leadership and Participation: Overview 5. Patricia Ahern, Paul Nuti & Julia M. Masterson (2000). Promoting Gender Equity in the Democratic Process 6. Piscopo, Jennifer M. 2015. “State and Gender Equality Activists: The Evolution of Quota Laws in Latin America.” Latin American Politics and Society. 57(3). 7. Bussey, Jane. (2000). “Campaign Finance Goes Global.” Foreign Policy 118 (spring):74–84. 8. Tripp, Aili Mari. (2015). Women and Power in Post conflict Africa. Cambridge University Press. 9. Cornwall & Goetz (2005). Democratizing Democracy: Feminist Perspective. 10. Finn Mackay (2015). Radical Feminism. Theory, Culture & Society 32(7 – 8) 332 – 336. 11. Ukrainian Women’s Fund (2011). Women’s participation in Politics and Decision-Making in Ukraine: Strategy Paper. 12. Berrin Koyuncu and Ahu Sumbas (2016) Discussing women’s representation in local politics in Turkey: The case of female mayorship. Women’s studies international forum 58(2016) 41-50. 13. Karen Celis et al (2013) “Gender and Politics: A Gendered World, a Gendered Discipline” The oxford handbook of gender and politics. 14. Dr. Ave Maria E. Semakafu, Coordinator – Tanzania Women Cross Party Platform and DemoFinland. Challenges facing women participation in election process in Tanzania. 15. Rebekah Herrick (2016) Gender themes in state legislative candidates’ websites. The social science journal 53 (2016) 282-290. 16. Datzberger & Le Mat (2017) “Just add women and stir? Education, gender and peacebuilding in Uganda.” International Journal of Educational Development 59(2018) 61-69. 17. Georgina Waylen (2007) Women’s Mobilization and Gender Outcomes in Transitions of Democracy – The case of South Africa. 75
18. Waylen Georgina (2000) Gender and Democratic Politics: A Comparative Analysis of Consolidation in Argentina and Chile. 19. Karen Celis et al (2013) “Gender and Politics: A Gendered World, a Gendered Discipline” The oxford handbook of gender and politics. 20. Daniel Kasomo (2012). Factors Affecting Women Participation in Electoral Politics in Africa. International Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences. 21. Anne Marie Goetz (2003). Women’s education and political participation. Gender and Education for all: The Leap to Equality. 22. David Purcell, Kelly MacArthur and Sarah Samblanet (2010). Gender and the Glass Ceiling at Work. Department of Sociology, Kent State University. 23. Roberto Fernandez & Santiago Campero (2016). Gender Sorting and the Glass Ceiling in High-tech firms. 24. Janeen Baxter & Erik Olin Wright (2000). The Glass Ceiling Hypothesis: A comparative study of the United States, Sweden, and Australia. Gender & Society, Vol. 14 No. 2, April 2000 275-294. Copyright 2000 Sociologists for Women in Society. 25. The Guardian writers (2015). Women of 2015: where are the cracks in the glass ceiling? 26. Ugwuegede Patience Nwabunkeonye (2014) “Challenges to Women Active Participation in Politics in Nigeria” Sociology and Anthropology 2(7): 284 – 290, 2014. 27. Arum I. (2010). Women NGOs and Women Empowerment in Nigeria (pp. 272-280). African Research Review, An International Multi-Disciplinary Journal, Ethiopia Vol. 4(3b) July, 2010. 28. Nancy Farber (2006). Conducting Qualitative Research: A Practical Guide for School Counsellors. 29. Anjum Halai (2006). Ethics in Qualitative Research: Issues and Challenges. 30. Sarah L. Collie and P. Jesse Rine (2009). Survey Design: Getting the Results you need. 31. Nkwachukwu Orji, Chukwuemeka Orji and Oluchi Agbanyim (2018). Women’s Political Representation in Nigeria: Why Progress is slow and what can be done to fast-track it. 32. Simona Stankevicius (2012). Lithuanian women in the Parliament: Access and participation in post- socialist politics. DePaul University, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. 33. UN Women, Annual report. http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/annual-report 34. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Consensus on Equality – Foreword - Annual Report 2010 – 2011 35. UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet – A Turning Point for Women – Foreword – Annual Report 2010-2011
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Internet sources 36. United Nations General Assembly; UN Documents: Gathering a body of global agreements. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly, 37/63. Declaration on the Participation of Women in Promoting International Peace and Co-operation. http://www.un-documents.net/a37r63.htm 37. UN Women Annual report 2010 – 2011. http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/annual-report 38. Herbert Smith, USAID Afghanistan Mission: Promote. https://www.usaid.gov/afghanistan/promote/ 39. UN Women. Women’s Leadership and Political Participation. http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we- do/leadership-and-political-participation 40. Dr. Susanne E. Jalbert & Robert Lord-Biggers (2018). Empowering women and cultivating equitable governance in Afghanistan. https://chemonics.com/empowering-women-and-cultivating-equitable- governance-in-afghanistan/ 41. Feminism: Participation of Women in Politics Democracy (2007, April 8). https://www.essaytown.com/subjects/paper/feminism-participation-women-politics/9609373. 42. Essays, UK. (November 2013). Role of International NGOs in Promoting International Politics Essay. Retrieved from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/politics/role-of-international-ngos-in-promoting- international-politics-essay.php?vref=1 43. USAID, Strengthening Women’s Rights and Political Participation. https://www.usaid.gov/what-we- do/gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment/addressing-gender-programming/strengthening- womens. 44. Feminism: Participation of Women in Politics Democracy (2007, April 8). https://www.essaytown.com/subjects/paper/feminism-participation-women-politics/9609373. 45. Ohizzy (2016). Gender Equality: Factors Hindering Female Participation in Nigerian Politics. http://www.worldpulse.com/en/community/users/ohizzy/posts/66590. 46. Jonathan Webb (2017). Glass Ceiling Still Keeps Top Jobs for the Boys: Women earn 75% of Men. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jwebb/2017/01/30/glass-ceiling-still-keeps-top-jobs-for-the-boys- women-earn-75-of-mens-salary/#336024d72bb2. 47. Graham Snowdon (The Guardian Report) (2011). “Women still face a glass ceiling.” https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/feb/21/women-glass-ceiling-still-exists-top-jobs. 48. The UN Women “Facts and figures: Leadership and Political Participation” http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/leadership-and-political-participation/facts-and-figures, 30/10/2017. 49. Davidson Aminu (Sept. 2018) on The Guardian Politics. Women and Political Empowerment. https://guardian.ng/politics/women-and-political-empowerment/ 50. Friends of the Environment. SDG 5: Gender Equality in Nigeria – A Critical Political Analysis. https://fote.org.ng/2018/12/sdg-5-gender-equality-in-nigeria-a-critical-political-analysis/ 77
51. OXFAM International. Empowering women in Nigeria. https://www.oxfam.org/en/countries/empowering-women-nigeria 52. UN Women, Africa. http://africa.unwomen.org/en/where-we-are/west-and-central-africa/nigeria 53. Davidson Aminu (Sept. 2018) on The Guardian Politics. Women and Political Empowerment. https://guardian.ng/politics/women-and-political-empowerment/ 54. Council of Women World Leaders. https://www.lrp.lt/cwwl/news/the-presidents-office-joins-global- movement-against-violence/21579 55. West Africa Gateway (2012). http://www.oecd.org/swac/publications/Nigeria_e-version_en_light.pdf 56. Countrymeters, 22 December 2018. Lithuania Population -> Population fact sheet. https://countrymeters.info/en/Lithuania#facts 57. Aarti Dwivedi, Ph.D Student on Quora (2013). Why do you think there are so few women in Parliament? https://www.quora.com/Why-do-you-think-there-are-so-few-women-in-Parliament 58. Empower women. https://www.empowerwomen.org/en/who-we-are/about-us 59. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania (2014). United Nations. https://www.urm.lt/default/en/foreign-policy/lithuania-in-the-region-and-the-world/international- organizations/united-nations 60. World Political Leaders Global Forum: WPL Summit 2018. https://wplsummit.org/ 61. WPL, Leadership Campaign. https://www.womeninparliaments.org/ General assembly of the United Nations general debates – speeches by the presidents of Lithuania and Nigeria for ten (10) sessions (from the 64th to the 73rd Sessions)
62. The 64th Session (September 24th, 2009) – Statement by Her Excellency Mrs. Dalia Grybauskaite, President of the Republic of Lithuania. https://gadebate.un.org/en/64/lithuania. 63. The 64th Session (28th September, 2009) – Statement of the President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria – delivered by Ojo Maduekwe, Minister of Foreign Affairs. https://gadebate.un.org/en/64/nigeria. 64. The 65th Session (September 2010) – Statement by Her Excellence Mrs. Dalia Grybauskaite. https://gadebate.un.org/en/65/lithuania. 65. The 65th Regular Session (24th September, 2010) – Statement by Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. https://gadebate.un.org/en/65/nigeria 66. The 66th Session (22nd September, 2011) – Address by H. E. Dalia Grybauskaite, President of the Republic of Lithuania. https://gadebate.un.org/en/66/lithuania. 67. The 66th Session (21st September, 2011) – Statement by Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. https://gadebate.un.org/en/66/nigeria
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68. The 67th Session (25th September, 2012) – Address by H. E. Dalia Grybauskaite, President of the Republic of Lithuania. https://gadebate.un.org/en/67/lithuania. 69. The 67th Session (25th September, 2012) – Address by Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. https://gadebate.un.org/en/67/nigeria 70. The 68th Session (26th September, 2013) – Address by H. E. Dali Grybauskaite, President of the Republic of Lithuania. https://gadebate.un.org/en/68/lithuania. 71. The 68th Ordinary Session (24th September, 2013) – Address by His Excellency, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathn. https://gadebate.un.org/en/68/nigeria 72. The 69th Session (26th September, 2014) – Address by H. E. Dalia Grybauskaite, President of the Republic of Lithuania. https://gadebate.un.org/en/69/lithuania. 73. The 69th Session (24th September, 2014) – Address by His Excellency President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. https://gadebate.un.org/en/69/nigeria 74. The 70th Session (29th September, 2015) – Speech by President of the Republic of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaite. https://gadebate.un.org/en/70/lithuania. 75. The 70th Session (28th September, 2015) – Address by Muhammadu Buhari, President, Federal Republic of Nigeria. https://gadebate.un.org/en/70/nigeria 76. The 71st Session (September 2016) – Address by President of the Republic of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaite. https://gadebate.un.org/en/71/lithuania. 77. The 71st Session (20th September, 2016) – Statement by His Excellency Muhammadu Buhari, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. https://gadebate.un.org/en/71/nigeria 78. The 72nd Session (19th September, 2017) – Statement by the President of the Republic of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaite. https://gadebate.un.org/en/72/lithuania. 79. The 72nd Session (19th September, 2017) – Statement by His Excellency Muhammadu Buhari, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. https://gadebate.un.org/en/72/nigeria 80. The 73rd Session (27th September, 2018) – Statement by the President of the Republic of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaite. https://gadebate.un.org/en/73/lithuania 81. The 73rd Session (25th September, 2018) – Statement by His Excellency, Muhammadu Buhari, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. https://gadebate.un.org/en/73/nigeria Strategic Documents of the UN and USAID 82. The 2011 UN General Assembly resolution on women’s political participation. http://peaceisloud.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/UN-Resolution-on-Women’s-Political- Participation.pdf. 83. UN Women – Annual Reports from 2010 – 2017. http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/annual- report 84. United Nations – Executive Board of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women; Strategic Plan 2018 – 2021. http://www.unwomen.org/en/executive- board/documents/strategic-plan-2018-2021. 79
ANNEXES Annex I: Survey Questionnaire Women in Politics
Hello everyone! Please I would like you to support my project by filling this survey. It's a very short one and would take just about 5 minutes of your time. The aim of this survey is to understand your take on women participation in politics and your opinion on gender equality. Your opinion would be highly respected and your identity would remain confidential. Your response would contribute immensely to the purpose of this survey, and trust me, it's the most interesting topic ever and you will sure have fun filling it.... Thank you!!!! 1. * Sex
Male
Female 2. * Age
3. * Country of Origin
4. * Occupation
5. Are you interested in politics?
Please help us understand why you selected this answer
6. Do you support the idea of gender equality?
Please help us understand why you selected this answer
7. * What is your take on women empowerment?
8. What sort of women empowerment would you mostly support?
Please help us understand why you selected this answer
9. * Does gender matter to you when it comes to politics?
10. What gender would you mostly prefer as the leader (president, governor, prime minister, monarch etc.) of your country/state/province etc etc....
Please help us understand why you selected this answer
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11. Who would you likely vote for during an election?
Please help us understand why you selected this answer
12. As a woman, would you run for a political office?
Please help us understand why you selected this answer
13. As a man, would you allow or support your mother, sister, spouse or daughter to run for a political office?
Please help us understand why you selected this answer
14. Do you think the world/your country would be a better place if more women were to be in power/decision-making positions?
Please help us understand why you selected this answer
15. Do you think women have the right to advocate for equal seats in the parliament and other political positions?
Please help us understand why you selected this answer
16. Are you satisfied with the kind of leadership in the world today?
Please help us understand why you selected this answer
17. In your opinion, how should women be politically empowered?
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Annex II: SDG Tier Classification Indicators
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Source: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/iaeg-sdgs/tier-classification/
Annex III: UN Women Grants for Gender Equality and Women Empowerment
2010 Grants and Grantees
Country/Initiative Programmes Amount of grant disbursed Africa Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe Gender Budgeting and Women‘s Empowerment $1,680,939 Women‘s Resource Centre and Programme Network –ZWRCN) Rwanda (RCN Justice and Beyond Raising Awareness: Shifting the Social $2,000,000 Democratie – Justice and Power Balance to enable women to access land Democracy)
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Liberia: (Ellen Johnson Sirleaf‘s SMWF Markets Program $3,000,000 Market Women‘s Fund – SMWF/US and SMWF/Liberia) Asia Cambodia: Health Education Strenthening Economic Livelihood $1,171,745 Media Services (CHEMS) and Opportunities for Poor Women and 1,300 HIV Cambodian HIV/AIDS positive women Education and Care (CHEC) India: Professional Assistance Facilitating Women in Poverty Regions in India $2,549,794 for Development Action Access Actualize and Sustain Mandated Goals (PRADAN) China: All-China Women‘s Equal Political Participation for Chinese Women $2,456,934 Federation (ACWF) Arab States Egypt: Ministry of Manpower Salheya Initiative for Women’s Economic $2,400,000 and Emigration and Social Empowerment Research Centre and The American University in Cairo Europe and CIS Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Netherlands Development Organization, $1,472,340 Gender Centre of the Federation BiH Office ‘Localizing Gender’ of Bosnia and Herzegovin Kyrgyzstan: Women Support Accountability of Government and Involvement $1,290,991 Centre (WSC) and Women- of the Women’s Movement for Women’s Entrepreneurs Support Political and Economic Empowerment Association (WESA) Latin America and the Caribbean Bolivia: Women’s Coordination Bolivian Women in the Process of Change: a $2,474,134 Office Policy Framework with Gender Equality Brazil: Special Secretariat for More Rights and More Power for Brazilian $3,000,000 Women’s Policies and Feminist Women Institute for Democracy
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Jamaica: Bureau of Women’s ‘Jamaican Women’s Economic and Political $1,729,537 Affairs and Dispute Resolution Empowerment: The Way Out’ Foundation Mexico: Gender Equality: ‘Strengthening Women’s Political Participation $2,295,000 Citizenship, Work and Family and Promoting an Economic Empowerment Agenda’ Source: UN Women Annual Report 2010 - 2011
2011 Grants and Grantees (Women Political Empowerment)
Country/Initiative Programmes Amount of grant disbursed Arab States Egypt Egyptian Center for A Wave of Women’s Voices – 1,000 and US$545,000 Women’s Rights; Counting...; The Women & Memory Forum Documentation and Empowerment: The US$200,000 Creation of an Archive of Women’s Voices in Egypt
Egypt, Jordan, the Occupied Stars of Hope Society Our Voice Counts US$265,000 Palestinian Territory, & Yemen Egypt, Libya & Yemen Inclusive Democracy: Ensuring Women’s US$565,000 Karama Political Rights in Libya, Yemen, and Egypt throughout the Arab Spring Iraq: Women Empowerment Gender Training for Iraqi Academics & US$215,000 Organization Researchers Occupied Palestinian Women’s Political Empowerment; US$200,000 Territories: Anabta Women Enhancing Palestinian Women’s Participation Welfare Society; in Public and Political Life; US$450,000 Association of Women Committees for Social Work;
Dalia Association; US$200,000 Women Supporting Women
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Palestinian Centre for Peace and Towards a Democratic Constitution that Grants Equal Rights to Women Democracy and the Jerusalem US$200,000 Centre for Women
Source: UN Women Annual Report 2011 - 2012
2012 Grants and Grantees (Women Empowerment)
Country/Initiative Programmes Amount of grant disbursed Africa Burundi: UNIPROBA Promotion of Gender Equality in the Indigenous Us$200,000 (Unissons-nous pour la Batwa Peoples of Burundi for the Participation of promotion des batwa) Indigenous Women in the Decision- Making Bodies at the Local Level Asia and the Pacific Cambodia: SILAKA Empowerment of Cambodian Women Leaders at Us$345,000 organization the Sub- National Level Mongolia: Liberal Women’s Political Leadership in National Us$200,000 emegteichuudiin oyunii San Development of Mongolia NGO Papua New guinea: voice for Advocacy Program on Ending Violence against Us$252,500 change Women” Philippines and Nepal: Indigenous Women’s Global Leadership School: Us$250,000 Tebtebba (Indigenous peoples’ Capacity Building and Political Empowerment in International centre for policy Asia research and education) Europe and Central Asia Kyrgyzstan: public association Empower Women’s and Girls’ Political and Us$225,000 “central asian alliance for Water” Economic Access to and Control of Drinking Water Management Latin America and the Caribbean argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Constructing a Labour Rights Agenda for Us$415,000 Uruguay: Fundación Fondo de Women Working in Homes and Sewing Workshops in the Southern Cone
86 mujeres del sur and Fondo alquimia Trinidad and Tobago: network Women’s Transformational Political Leadership Us$330,000 of ngos of trinidad and tobago for at Local and National Levels in Trinidad and the advancement of Women Tobago Uruguay: Centro de More Women, Better Politics Us$355,000 comunicación virginia Woolf— cotidiano mujer Source: UN Women Annual Report 2012 - 2013
2013 Grants and Grantees (Political Empowerment)
Country/Initiative Programmes Amount of grant disbursed
Africa
Kenya: GROOTS Kenya To Strengthen Governance and Accountability of US$302,000 Association Leadership in Kenya through Quality and Quantity of Women’s Political Participation
Arab States
Egypt, Libya and Yemen Inclusive Democracy: Ensuring Women’s US$565,000 Karama Political Rights in Libya, Yemen and Egypt throughout the Arab Spring
Europe and Central Asia
Georgia: Cultural-Humanitarian Gender Advisory Councils – Increasing US$305,000 Fund “Sukhumi” Women’s Role in Social Changes of Regions
Kyrgyzstan: Public Association Empower Women’s and Girls’ Political and US$225,000 “Central Asian Alliance for Economic Access to and Control of Drinking Water Water Management
Latin America and the Caribbean
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Guatemala: Asociación de Political Empowerment of Women in Izabal US$375,000 Mujeres JUNAJIL in partnership with Asociación Programa de Gestión Ambiental Local
Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay More Women, Better Politics US$355,000 and Chile: Centro de Comunicación Virginia Woolf- Cotidiano Mujer
Source: UN Women Annual Report 2013 - 2014
2014 Grants and Grantees (Women Empowerment)
Country/Initiative Programmes Amount of grant disbursed Africa Burundi: Unissons-nous pour la Promotion of gender equality of peoples Batwa $ 200,000 promotion des Batwa from Burundi to the participation of women in (UNIPROBA) decision making on a local level Rwanda (RCN Justice and Beyond Raising Awareness: Shifting the Social $2,000,000 Democratie – Justice and Power Balance to enable women to access land Democracy) Nigeria: Nigeria Community Empowering grass-roots women leaders for $535,000 Life Project participation in local governance in two States in south-west Nigeria Zimbabwe : Basilwilzi Binga Women Economic Empowerment Project $200,000 Trust/Zubo (BWEEP) Asia and the Pacific Bangladesh: Bolipara Nar Promote an enabling environment for ethnic hilly USD 200,000 iKalyan Somity (BNKS) women of Bangladesh to access and control over economic resources Pakistan: Pak Women Facilitating Women in Poverty Regions in India USD 220,000 Access Actualize and Sustain Mandated Goals
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Sri Lanka: Centre for Women’s Economic empowerment of women in USD 200,000 Research (CENWOR) lowincome groups and the realization of their economic rights and gender equality Arab States Algeria: Association of Promoting equality between men and women in USD 200,000 Solidarity and Fight Against the rural area of Bourdj Bou Arreridj for human Poverty and Exclusion – El social and economic development Ghaith Egypt, Yemen and Libya: Inclusive democracy: Ensuring women’s USD 565,000 KARAMA political rights in Libya, Yemen and Egypt throughout the Arab Spring State of Palestine: Palestinian Towards a democratic constitution that grants USD 200,000 Women for Peace and equal rights to women Development (PCPD) Europe and Central Asia Georgia: Sukhumi Gender Advisory Councils: Increasing women’s USD 305,00 role in social change of regions Kyrgyzstan: Public Association Gender Advisory Councils: Increasing women’s USD 225,000 “Central Asian Alliance for role in social change of regions Water” Latin America and the Caribbean Bolivia: Women’s Coordination Bolivian Women in the Process of Change: a $2,474,134 Office Policy Framework with Gender Equality Brazil: SOS Corpo – Instituto More Rights and More Power for Brazilian USD 2,500,000 Feminista para a Democracia Women Argentina: Fondo Mujeres del Constructing a labour rights agenda for women USD 415,000 Sur working in homes and sewing workshops in the Southern Cone Peru: Centro de Culturas Indigenous women defending Mother Earth: USD 535,000 lndigenas del Peru (CHIRAPAC) Economic rights and empowerment in Latin Family America Source: UN Women Annual Report 2014 - 2015
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