The Figures:
According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) statistics, from 1945 to 1995, the percentage of women MPs worldwide has increased four-fold. Their latest statistics indicate that, in 1998, the world average of women in parliaments (both houses combined) is 12.7%, with the highest percentage existing in the Nordic context at 37.6%, followed by the Americas at 15.5%, Asia at 13.4%, Europe OSCE member countries (excluding the Nordic countries) at 12.5%, Sub-Saharan Africa at 11.6%, the Pacific at 8.3%, and the lowest in the Arab states 3.3%. Also according to the same statistics, since 1995, 6 countries acquired a woman speaker of parliament for the first time: Ethiopia (1995), Latvia (1995), Peru (1995), Jamaica (1996), Malta (1996) and Poland (1997).

According to the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women (UNDAW) Fact Sheet on Women in Government of 1996, the percentage of women in both ministerial and sub-ministerial levels ranges from 0% (in about 15 countries[9] ), to 30% in 2 countries[10] . It is interesting to note that out of the 15 countries with 0% of women in government positions in 1996, 8 were Arab countries.

Statistical data on women in important judicial positions is not accessibly documented and was therefore difficult to obtain, save for the United States Supreme Court where 2 of the 9 Justices currently serving are women, but this has not changed after 1995. Again in the US, there are 154 women judges out of the 1,181 Federal judges. The need for a gender perspective in the judiciary is critical since more often than not laws traditionally are gender blind. The idea being that legislative formulation, interpretation, and implementation often affect women and men differently, and as such, legislative bodies should provide an avenue for equal opportunities to incorporate the different perspectives and experiences of both genders.

This does indicate, however, the necessity of being able to collate and share such information in the future. A similar feature characterises the information available on women in local government. As the latest publication of the International Union of Local Authorities (IULA) indicates, “there is a huge lack of information and reliable statistical data concerning women’s representation at the local level. Statistics related to women’s representation in the national parliaments are fairly easy to access, but when it comes to the local level there are many blanks”[11] . However, almost in the same breath, the same report indicates that women’s representation at the local level generally surpasses that at the national one.

The International Union of Local Authorities, in its study on women in local governments in different regions of the world, provides some statistical information[12] . In Africa for instance, women’s participation is estimated at probably less than 5% [13]. As for Asia, no statistics are provided, but we learn that India for instance, has an amendment to its constitution in 1992, which states that 33% of the seats in local decision-making bodies (both urban and rural) are to be reserved for women. Whereas Philippinas fare better in local councils in rural areas, the number of women local representatives in Australia dropped after their last council elections of 1997.

Central America fared much better statistically-speaking, with percentages of women mayors in Costa Rica at 12%; Guatemala 1.3%; Honduras at 9%, and Nicaragua at 7%. The East Mediterranean and the Middle East suffered from poorer statistics, with Turkey being the one country with an estimate out of the general municipal election results of 1994, where 0.46% of mayors elected were women, and even then at the smaller scale district levels.

Europe, Latin America, North America and the Caribbean had more statistical data, which can be summarised as follows:

Europe: In the European Union in 1997, 1 out of 5 local elected representatives was female, with the situation varying from one country to another. Sweden for example, has 40% of its seats in Local Assemblies held by women, whereas less than 4% of local elected representatives in Greece are women[14] .

Latin America: Data compiled between 1992 and 1995 indicates that the average rate is 7.5% women mayors and 3.8% women municipal councillors in town halls. Information is difficult to obtain for post-1995 statistics.

North America: According to the IULA report on Women in Local Government, the United States of America figures from 1990 indicate that the average number of women mayors was 17% and the percentage of women in local councils was 23%. Other statistics also indicate that in January 1997, 12 of the nation's 100 largest cities had women mayors or city managers[15] , and in March 1997, 202 of the 975 US cities with more than 30,000 residents, had women mayors[16] .

In Canada, 18% of the councilwomen are members. In Quebec, despite using quotas to equalise the number of seats for women and men (which resulted in an increase in the percentage of women mayors and councillors rose between 1985 and 1996) there has nevertheless been an apparent decline in numbers since then[17] . It is interesting to reiterate the observation made by the International Union of Local Authorities reports on here, which is that particularly in Quebec and Montreal, after attempts to study why women’s representation at the local level were stagnating, it was realised that connections to the local women’s movement played a key role in inspiring women to run for elections[18] .

The Caribbean: Trinidad and Tobago’s women’s representation follows the pattern of having a higher level at the local rather than the national. Figures quoted in the report indicated that the percentage of women in local government councils is 21% with 14% of the Mayors being women[19] .

Since 1995, the quantitative and qualitative levels of women in decision making has increased in the United Nations itself. For the first time a female Deputy Secretary-General was appointed, and for the first time both the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and the World Health Organisation have been headed by women. This recent addition makes a total of five organisations headed by women, UNICEF, UNFPA, and WFP included.

What is still lacking and would admittedly be extremely difficult to accumulate without international co-ordination, is data on the number of women who are heading another important feature of political participation, i.e. non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Over the past decades, NGOs have been playing an increasingly influential and crucial role as the heart of civil societies across the world, in many instances stepping into the political, social and economic vacuum left by different states. They are too numerous to count, but it would nevertheless be interesting to have some ideas as to how many women head them - and particularly the ones dealing with political promotion.

As for the category of women rulers of countries, either as Presidents or Prime Ministers, and excluding the Queens, current figures indicate that there appear to be six women, four of whom came to power after 1995. These are in the following countries: Sri Lanka (where both mother and daughter are Prime Minister and President respectively), Bangladesh (Prime Minister since June 1996), Ireland (President since November 1997[20]), New Zealand (Prime Minister since 1997), and Guyana (President since December 1997). It is interesting to note that Chile, despite it featuring in the news today primarily as the land of General Pinochet, is now also host to the first female general in the army as of November 20, 1998.

So what do these figures tell us of the latest trends since the recommendations of the Beijing Platform for Action? Visiting the Platform for Action itself, we can deduce the following with respect to the different actors:

• Despite the fact that many governments have adopted and adapted affirmative action measures and the rhetoric of gender balance, the figures still indicate that globally, despite the fact that women are half of the population, they are nowhere near half of the decision-making structures. The threshold of 30% advocated by the UNDP Human Development Report, as a prelude to the 50% is still a dream for most women.
• In some countries, e.g. in the Arab region, freedom of association remains a politically sensitive issue in view of a predominance of authoritarian regimes, let alone the protection of the equal rights of men and women to engage in political activities. In fact, as far as the latter is concerned, again using the example of the Arab region, it would seem that women’s organisations in particular are given a particularly hard time to go about their work, particularly in view of the rising tension between the state and political Islam groups (Islamists)[21].
• The differential impact of electoral systems is a subject that is gaining more attention from a variety of sources. However, it remains the case that the data collected thus far remains Euro- and western-centric in its content[22] , as there is a serious paucity of information on what and how electoral systems affect women’s political representation in the rest of the world. Until this information is available and comparatively analysed, it is difficult to advocate a particular measure to promote any specific electoral system.
• The data indicated that as far as concerted efforts to gather information on women in general and gendered statistics in particular, a great deal of work needs to be done. Moreover, it remains the case that without this data, mechanisms to monitor women’s access to senior levels of decision-making, also remain lacking.

• The number of women in parliaments and in local governments around the world indicates that political parties have some way to go to implementing gender-conscious policies among the ranks of both their staff as well as within their agendas.

• The rise of women to prominent leadership positions within the UN, would indicate that progress on that level is positive.
• The UN’s role in collecting, assessing and disseminating information is also a sign of how seriously the Secretary-General’s target of having women hold 50% managerial and decision-making positions by the end of the year is being taken.
• Advocating that the UN continue to gather and provide gender-desegregated statistics remains very important since there are still areas where there is a lack of any information and/or comparative statistics, e.g. women in the judiciary.

• Awareness raising about women’s rights and their capacities, as well as the way the media portrays and assists, and larger aspects of societal values have come a long way, but they have not led to any changes over the last 5 years. However, the fact that in some countries, women’s representation on local councils is larger than that on national levels, does make for interesting consideration.

One of the consequences of Beijing was a mobilisation of debates on and around women’s concerns before, during, as well as after the huge gathering itself. The actual signing of the Beijing Platform for Action by governments, though not legally binding, is morally and technically so. Moreover, the existence of this document has tended to act as a manifesto and/or ideal agenda outline for many initiatives. Examples are cited as far apart as Colombia, Japan, and Turkey[23] . These ranged from setting up special committees to pressurise and monitor how governments implement the Beijing Platform for Action recommendations such as those in Japan, to taking up cross-party collaborative efforts to lobby governments on specific issues. Examples include drafting for a liberalisation of the anti-abortion law, amendments of the civil code, and setting up a commission to modify laws pertaining to women in Congress - such as in Poland, Turkey and Peru respectively.

The South African experience, with full regard to its uniqueness in terms of the anti-apartheid struggle, still remains a tribute to how women can lobby and effectively organise themselves to push for gender-specialised and sensitive institutions, legislation, policies, as well as shifts in attitudes and mentality. All this while closely following the injunctions of the Beijing Platform for Action. In the words of a former South African woman MP:

The preparations and discussions for Beijing enriched the development of the [women’s] movement’s gender policies…Following the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, the Government adopted the Platform for Action. Government departments identified what actions they could carry out in specific periods of time to assist the process of achieving gender equality. These not only included focus areas, like women and violence and women and health, but mechanisms to promote the advancement of women in South Africa in general[24] .

Mobilisation and motivation for discussions and initiatives aside, women’s participation, at least in terms of numbers, remains hampered as long as there is a wide gap in the rates of political participation between the two sexes. This remains very much case throughout the world, particularly when the definition of a ‘political space’ is broadened to include domains such as the business sector, and the academic environs. In Sweden for example despite the fact that women form 44% of parliament, they are less than 10% of senior academic staff and the decision-making echelons of the business community. Whereas in Egypt, although women are less than 2% of parliament, they are over 40% of senior academic staff, but less than 10% in the business sector.

There are some regions of the world, which need a bigger boost - primarily in terms of the availability of resources and management thereof - than others. Some of the African countries have witnessed little or no change, whereas others, such as Uganda, South Africa and Kenya are seeing important gains for women in position of power. Latin America and the Arab world remain areas of relatively little remarkable gains for women politically. It is noteworthy that in these latter two areas, despite many similarities in background and socio-political developments (particularly those connected with religious and political cultures, and gender relations) rarely come together to share experiences.

It is difficult not to observe a certain eurocentric pattern here: for each region traditionally compares itself and shares experiences with the Europeans, but rarely with each other. Bringing together the Middle East and the Latin American contexts may be an enriching initiative for both sides, but particularly for the Middle East since the Latin American context is, on the whole, relatively better off.

Affirmative action measures, such as quotas and particular types of electoral systems (e.g. the proportional representation system) were and are being used to rectify imbalances in political representation. However, the debacle over introducing the quotas for women in the Indian parliament (where apparently the proposed bill was torn to shreds before it was about to be tabled for discussion), though somewhat extreme, is nevertheless indicative of the controversy that still surrounds this particular measure. The main arguments against quotas is that they are allegedly undemocratic since women who benefit from them are not elected and therefore unrepresentative, that they disfavour women because they are then viewed as undeserving and incapable of carrying out the demands of the position, and that quota-women in effect can be merely figureheads or ‘yes-people’, who are unlikely to use their positions to effect any change.

Arguments for quotas usually gain more popularity since the basis for them is that women need a helping hand against the multiplicity of obstacles traditionally arrayed against their public participation: from social to economic to cultural to political. Another pro-quota contention is that representativity and capacity to perform are not guaranteed by any political actor, man or woman, and preventing that which may assist the less privileged from obtaining an opportunity to perform, is in itself unjust. Besides, argues the pro-quota camp, quotas are meant for both genders when attempting to correct an imbalance. The fact that in the political arena they are used predominantly for women is but an indication that such an imbalance exists.

As for electoral systems however, the research that exists covering the effect of different electoral systems on women’s political representation, remains far less detailed and less comprehensive than that merited by more general issues of impact. As mentioned above, the data that exists is predominantly based on research and insights gleaned from the Western Hemisphere. It is from studies carried out in countries like Norway, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand and Germany for example, that results have indicated the positive correlation between PR systems and the number of women in the legislature.

Very little, if any, detailed and long-term studies on how electoral systems affect women’s representation in the South are actually available. This is simultaneous to the fact that simple information about different kinds of electoral systems and their impact more generally, is lacking in many parts of the developing world. This is an imbalance in information and a lack of knowledge that is as serious as it is indicative. Efforts to stimulate research on this issue, and the dissemination of results thereof, remain an area of need that must be addressed.

• The Beijing Platform for Action is an important tool for those working on enhancing women’s political participation, and many of its injunctions are being followed and used as a reference point for plans of action by a number of international, regional and local organisations and individuals.
• The figures indicate there are women in important political positions around the world, though the extent varies from one country to another.
• The number of women in government remains, generally, far below the 30% target specified by UNDP. However, that does not mean that progress has not been made.
• Information and data, particularly gender desegregated data, while impressive on women in parliaments and government (ministerial and sub-ministerial) remains low on aspects such as local government, judiciary as well as non-governmental organisations and business sectors.
• Affirmative action strategies still need to be implemented in some areas whereas there is a lack of information, particularly comparative information, regarding effects of quotas and electoral systems, particularly in the developing countries of the world.
• Generally speaking, governments, international organisations, civil society and others have progressed as far as observing some of the injunctions of the Beijing Platform for Action, but much more needs to be done particularly - but not only - in the developing world.