Global Scenario and women Empowerment

Gender equality and women’s empowerment are not only rights of human, they are also very important for achieving comprehensive, equitable and sustainable development. Women’s political contribution is central to these goals, and political parties are among the most central institutions for promoting and nurturing such participation. Less than twenty percent of the world’s parliamentary seats are occupied by women, it is clear that political parties need to do more and should be assisted in those efforts to maintain women’s political empowerment. Globally, although forty to fifty percent of party members are women, women hold only about tenper cent of the headship positions within those parties. Ensuring women’s equal participation in the decision making structures of parties is essential for promoting gender equality within them – and, ultimately, within society as a whole (UNICEF, 2006).

Globally, women remain sidelined from the structures of governance that determine political and legislative priorities. In the world’s parliaments, women hold 19 percent of the seats – up from 16 percent in 2005. The proportion of women ministers is lower, averaging 16 percent. The proportion of women heads of state and government is lower still and has declined in recent years, standing at less than 5 percent in 2011. The low numbers continue in the face of three decades of lobbying and efforts by the international community to eliminate discrimination and empower women. In 2000, the United Nations recognized the central role of women in development by including the empowerment of women as one of the Millennium Development Goals, yet no region in the world is on track to achieve the target of 30 percent women in decision-making positions. Although some notable exceptions and good practices in this area are discernible, several bottlenecks remain to women’s full and equal participation as contestants. Stereotyping gender roles and biases are prevalent, albeit to varying degrees, in all the countries of the world and are reflected in social, economic, and political life (UNDP, 2012).

The U.S. has a bicameral Congress, with a House of Representatives and the Senate. Women constitute 17 percent of the Senate and 16 percent of the House of Representatives in the 112th Congress. Candidates who wish to run as a Democrat or Republican for elected office need simply declare their affiliation to a party, and if they can garner enough votes in the primary election, they can become the official party candidate. In practice, state party committees often recruit and endorse candidates of their choice, but electoral processes vary between states as well as between districts within states.

Rationale for Increasing Women’s Participation

As early as 1848, women activists convened the first women’s rights Convention in the United States in Seneca Falls, New York and created a Declaration of Sentiments, demanding women’s suffrage. Despite a century of mounting support for women’s political participation, American women activists have experienced inconsistent gains within the Democratic Party. 

Women Empowerment

Women are not helpless in face of existing challenges. They are decision-makers for themselves, their families, villages, businesses, and governments. For societies where this is not the case, people speak of the need for women’s empowerment. But what does it really mean to empower women? Is it political empowerment, economic empowerment, social empowerment, In fact, these groups are not mutually exclusive. They are reinforcing each other.

Women’s political empowerment, is pictured as political contribution in elections and government, is essential to give women a voice in the policies that have an effect on their lives. Women’s economic empowerment, which demands that women have the right to make their own choices concerning use of their resources, leads to prosperity for families and communities. Social empowerment, often achieved through public policy and education, liberates women from the mistreatment, exploitation, and repression that restrain women from reaching their full potential.

         Women's empowerment has five constituents:  women's sense of self-worth; their right to have and to conclude choices; their right to have access to opportunities and resources; their right to have the power to manage their own lives, both within and outside the home; and their skill to influence the direction of social change to create a more just social and economic order, nationally and internationally.

UNDP is focusing on women’s empowerment not only as human rights, but also because they are a pathway to achieving the Millennium Development Goals and sustainable development. UNDP coordinates global and national efforts to integrate gender equality and women’s empowerment into poverty reduction, democratic governance, crisis prevention and recovery, and environment and sustainable development. Through our global network, we work to ensure that women have a real voice in all governance institutions, from the judiciary to the civil service, as well as in the private sector and civil society, so they can participate equally with men in public dialogue and decision-making and influence the decisions that will determine the future of their families and countries (UNDP, 2015).