Promoting women’s political participation and gender equality

ODIHR works to facilitate the exchange of experience and expertise between OSCE participating States and Mediterranean Partners for Co-operation in the areas of ensuring equal opportunity for participation of women in political and public life, building national mechanisms for the advancement of women and providing legislative assistance to support efforts in enhancing gender equality and combating domestic violence.

ODIHR assists OSCE participating States in implementing their commitments on gender equality and enhancing women’s political participation through policy dialogue and the exchange of good practices among government and civil society. To this end, ODIHR can facilitate the exchange of experience and expertise between OSCE participating States and Mediterranean Partners for Co-operation in the areas of ensuring equal opportunity for participation of women in political and public life, building national mechanisms for the advancement of women and providing legislative assistance to support efforts in enhancing gender equality and combating domestic violence.

OSCE/ODIHR Contribution to the Regional Workshop “Constitutions, Women and the Arab Spring”, Istanbul, 16-18 March 2012

Organized by the Central and Eastern European Network for Gender Issues in partnership with the Turkish non-governmental organization KADER and the European Forum for Democracy and Solidarity, this event brought together women politicians and civil society representatives from Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, the Western Balkans and the United Kingdom, to discuss the constitutional and legislative reform processes and the voluntary measures that can be introduced to enhance gender equality within political parties.

ODIHR shared its expertise on political party regulation, focusing on internal party democracy as a means to enhance gender equality. As a result of the workshop, participants expressed an interest in organizing a regional event gathering reform-minded political party representatives from North Africa to network further and develop joint advocacy strategies.