Every election presents an opportunity to boost women’s participation and advance gender equality and women’s rights. The following actions can help bring lasting change:
- Use special measures, such as legislated gender quotas and gender-balanced appointments
Around the world, gender quota legislation has been shown to effectively enhance women’s participation. In countries with mandated parliamentary quotas, women hold an average of 26 per cent of parliamentary seats, compared to 21 per cent in countries without such quotas. Similarly, countries with legislated quotas for local elections see women’s representation increase by an average of seven percentage points over those without quotas.
However, the potential of quotas is often not fully realized, with targets frequently set below 50 per cent and implementation mechanisms lacking or weak. While 94 countries have introduced gender quotas for parliaments, only one-fifth of those countries have set a target of 50 per cent for women’s representation.
- End violence against women in politics
Violence hinders women from exercising their rights to participate in political and public life and has wider consequences for societies: it undermines public institutions, weakens policy outcomes, and impedes progress in peace and development. Governments must pass and enforce laws and policies to prevent violence during elections and beyond, to hold perpetrators accountable, and strengthen access to justice and services for victims. To better address online violence against women in politics, governments should collect data on such harassment and hold media and social media companies accountable.
- Ensure the equal treatment of women voters, political candidates, and electoral administrators
Electoral management bodies and other relevant stakeholders should develop and implement inclusive policies and codes of conduct that promote non-discrimination, integrity, transparency, freedom from violence, and dispute resolution. To uphold women’s rights to vote, governments must facilitate voter registration, guarantee security at polling stations, and protect women from coercion or intimidation. Involving women in election administration enhances the inclusiveness and credibility of elections and encourages more women to vote.
- Support women candidates and representative decision-making
Governments must invest in capacity-building programmes for women candidates to develop their leadership and campaigning skills, and regulate campaign financing to allocate targeted funds for women candidates. Governments should consider regulating campaign financing to encourage political parties to allocate targeted funds for women candidates and their campaigns. This approach would help bridge the financing gap and promote equal participation in politics.
- Encourage fair and transparent media coverage of women’s political participation
Laws governing election media coverage are essential for regulating electoral processes and ensuring informed public participation. Such laws should ensure balanced coverage of all candidates, guarantee media access for all political parties, prohibit hate speech and rhetoric that incites violence, discourage gender stereotypes and discrimination, and protect against violence towards women and other underrepresented groups. Additionally, independent oversight of these regulations should be established, along with sanctions in cases of violations.