Dr Ojiambo was addressing Ministers and senior officials responsible for gender equality and women’s empowerment at the Commonwealth’s annual women’s affairs consultation in New York.
“Greater efforts are required to reach the global target of 30% representation of women in political decision-making roles,” said Commonwealth Secretariat Deputy Secretary-General Josephine Ojiambo.
Dr Ojiambo was addressing Ministers and senior officials responsible for gender equality and women’s empowerment at the Commonwealth’s annual women’s affairs consultation in New York at the weekend.
Under the theme ‘Women’s Political Leadership within Beijing+20 and the Post-2015 Development Agenda,’ the 2015 National Women’s Machineries meeting provided stakeholders with the opportunity to share achievements and address gaps in advancing women’s political participation.
Discussions covered a number of key topics - elimination of violence against women, women’s entrepreneurship and women’s leadership in the public and private sectors.
Describing the current political environment as “discouraging” for women, Dr Shirin Chaudhury, Speaker of the Bangladesh Parliament, advocated proportional representation as a favourable electoral system for increasing the number of women in parliament.
In her presentation, Dr Chaudhury stressed the importance of legislative frameworks to boost women’s representation. She stated: “We have to institutionalise women’s political participation.”
On the topic of women’s entrepreneurship, Dr Jeannine Comma from the Cave Hill Business School in Barbados highlighted the need for stronger partnerships between the public and private sectors.
She said: “There isn’t leadership in the private sector and leadership in the public sector. There is leadership.”
Roberta Clarke, Asia and Pacific Regional Director, UN Women, explained that at the current pace of change, it would take approximately 80 years to achieve gender equality across all sectors.
It was widely acknowledged that violence against women remained one the most serious concerns. The representative from the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Ms Seema Naidu, called for greater efforts to counter its growing prevalence, describing the issue as the single largest obstacle women continued to face.
A record number of high-level participants, including ministers, senior officials and other representatives, attended the meetings this year. Delegates came from Commonwealth countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe and the Pacific.
Outcomes of the two-day consultation will feed into the Women’s Forum at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta in November 2015 and the Commonwealth’s Women’s Affairs Ministers Meeting in Samoa in 2016
Prior to the National Women’s Machineries meeting, the 13th Commonwealth Gender Plan of Action Monitoring Group was convened and chaired by the Nigerian Minister for Women’s Affairs, Hajiya Zainab Maina.
The Group agreed on inputs for the End Term Review of the Commonwealth Plan of Action for Gender Equality, which expires in 2015. The review will be endorsed at the 11th Women’s Affairs Ministerial Meeting in Samoa.
Partners included: Secretariat of the Pacific Community; UN Women; Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); Commonwealth Foundation; Commonwealth Businesswomen’s Network, Royal Commonwealth Society and Association of Commonwealth Universities.