Annual Progress Report 2016 Respect for Women’s Political Rights: Fostering Political Environments for Equal Participation and Leadership of Women in Political Parties May 2017 MFA activity number: 26091 1 Contents Executive Summary .................................................................................................................... 3 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 5 2. Monitoring & Learning ............................................................................................................ 6 3. Colombia ................................................................................................................................ 7 3.1 Political update ................................................................................................................................................................. 7 3.2 Programme 2015 .............................................................................................................................................................. 8 3.3 Milestone achievement .................................................................................................................................................... 9 3.4 Key observations ............................................................................................................................................................ 13 4. Kenya ................................................................................................................................... 14 4.1 Political update ............................................................................................................................................................... 14 4.2 Programme 2015 ............................................................................................................................................................ 14 4.3 Milestone achievement .................................................................................................................................................. 15 4.4 Key observations ............................................................................................................................................................ 17 5. Tunisia ................................................................................................................................. 18 5.1 Political update ............................................................................................................................................................... 18 5.2 Programme 2015 ............................................................................................................................................................ 18 5.3 Milestone achievement .................................................................................................................................................. 18 5.4 Key observations ............................................................................................................................................................ 20 6. Knowledge agenda ............................................................................................................... 21 6.1 Update on the knowledge agenda ................................................................................................................................. 21 6.2 Milestones achievement ................................................................................................................................................ 21 7. Notes to the WPR financial report and the 2017 revised planning .......................................... 23 2 Executive Summary The WPR Programme is funded under the Human Rights financing framework of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and aims to create enabling political environments where all political rights are upheld, and it addresses constraints women face it their pursuit of a political career or as advocate for women’s political empowerment. Based on its good and bad practices, the programme aims to produce knowledge on what works when influencing issues of gender-equality in politics for democracy practitioners. After the internal learning workshop in the beginning of 2016, the participants from Kenya, Tunisia and Colombia decided to focus for the remainder of the WPR project on the implementation of the Gender Assessment Reports, and the action plans for improving gender equality that were subsequently developed. These plans and their implementation contribute to ensure equal rights and equality of opportunities for political careers for men and women, young and old, poor and rich. Building on the first two years of implementation of the WPR programme (2014 and 2015), in 2016 results became visible. Some of the highlight of the programme are: In the three countries, most of the political parties committed themselves to amend (or draft) their internal rules because of the Gender Assessment Reports and Action Plans. In Colombia, the Gender Ranking, comparing 2012 with 2016, shows that 4 out of 10 parties improved their scores, mainly related to an increase of women in senior positions of the party. Each of the programme countries completed the comparative Factsheet on Gender and Political Finance. The WPR programme is functioning as a flywheel both within the programme countries as in other NIMD programmes: - Inspired by the methodology of the Gender Assessment Reports (GAR), and building on previous experience of the first Ranking of Gender Equality among Political Parties, the NIMD office in Georgia included the GAR methodology in their second Gender Ranking. - By showing the advancements made with the WPR programme, CMD-Kenya managed to secure funding from UN Women to increase levels of women representation in political representation at the National and County levels. The UN Women support adds on to the WPR project. Identification and engagement of male change agents will therefore be implemented under the UN Women framework. With the freed up WPR funds, CMD-Kenya will implement an Observatory on Electoral Violence against Women during the 2017 elections. In Tunisia, Mrs. Neziha Labidi from Al-Moubadara party was appointed Minister of women’s affairs, and Ms Saoussen Ksibi Barka from UPL party was elected at the executive bureau of her party. Both declared they used the skills and capacities that they had acquired during the WPR capacity building sessions. Sharing of best practice: in Tunisia, an interesting sharing of experience took place on women and youth political participation between political men and women from Tunisia and from the Liberal Party of Canada. NIMD-IDEA started with the conceptualization on the content and inventory of publications/knowledge resources for the Access-Participation-Transformation Tool that will be presented and ready to use at the end of 2017. Colombian Congress approved procedures to regulate the alternation and parity established by law. 3 Inclusion of male politicians in ensuring gender equality: in Colombia, male politicians expressed themselves about the importance of female political participation and against violence against women in the video “Violence against women in politics: this is not normal!”. In Kenya, high-level male politicians from various political parties expressed themselves in favour of the no more than 2/3 rule. In Tunisia, male and female politicians participated in the exchange on the importance of women and youth political participation with Canada. There are however also remaining challenges: Though in every country NIMD and IDEA try to expand the WPR focus to the local level, the main part of activities still takes place at capital level. This is a pity, as we recognize that barriers for women participation tend to be even higher at municipal level. Dissolving parties, internal changes in the leadership of the party or of the gender focal point, make it hard to build a long-term constructive relationship with the parties. This goes especially for parties that are poorly structured and that function as electoral vehicles rather than representative political parties. Women political participation is affected by a lack of clear and transparent procedures when naming candidates representing the party in elections at the national and local levels. The way media deepen the existing gender stereotypes, hamper opportunities for female leadership. In Kenya, the challenge remains to capture the constitutional norm of no more than two- thirds of each gender, in national legislation or rules and regulations. This is especially important in light of the August 2017 elections. It is difficult to ensure the commitment of the highest political party leaders to endorse reform processes in favour of equal rights for men and women. 4 1. Introduction This is the Annual Report 2016 for the ‘Respect for Women’s Political Rights’ programme (WPR) implemented in Colombia, Kenya and Tunisia aimed at strengthening women’s political participation and leadership. The programme started in January 2014 and this report covers the third year of implementation from January 2016 – December 2016. In the first quarter of 2016, NIMD organized the WPR learning workshop to exchange experiences and define the way forward for 2016 and 2017, with a view of obtaining the best possible results. The workshop parted from