Back LAB 12: Women’s involvement in decision-making is a right not a favour

LAB 12: Women’s involvement in decision-making is a right not a favour

“We are not demanding favours, but a right, a right to participate in decision-making using tools that will enable us to change the world”, declared Ambassador Meglena Kuneva, Permanent Representative of the EU delegation to the Council of Europe, at the opening of LAB 12 “Participatory democracy: a necessary boost for women’s power?” on 20 November 2018. In her capacity as moderator of this laboratory of ideas, taking place at the World Forum for Democracy in Strasbourg (France), Ms Kuneva said she strongly believed that fair access to the decision-making process was the best way to ensure peace and sustainable development.

Sponsored by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities and by Democratic Society, the Council of Europe’s Incubator for Participatory Democracy, this LAB was based on the presentation of an initiative being implemented by the municipality of Messina (Italy) to develop inclusive approaches involving women, young people and victims of exclusion, and an initiative of the City of Ghent (Belgium) aiming to make the voices of women from 150 different nationalities heard.

The LAB gave rise to an exchange of views, especially on the relevance of quota systems. Some participants raised concerns about the negative consequences of allocating quotas to “all groups or all ethnic or sexual minorities”. Another participant voiced disagreement with the allocation of quotas: “I wouldn’t like people to say I was elected because I’m a woman and not because of my abilities”.

Responding to these remarks, Democratic Society representative Francesca Attolino emphasised the importance of education and asked “Why is it always women and not men who wonder if they’ve been elected for their abilities?”. She drew attention to the role played by quotas in bringing about change through positive discrimination and called for an informative approach so as to involve citizens in the processes leading to quotas. She also reminded the participants that the struggle for equality was a struggle of all citizens together.

Also advocating the need for quotas, the representative of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) pointed out that, according to a World Economic Forum report, without quotas it would be necessary to wait 217 years at the current rate of change before the elimination of the gender gap in the fields of employment, education and politics.

Stewart Dickson (United Kingdom, ILDG), a member of the Congress, supported a system of temporary quotas. He said the Police Service of Northern Ireland had undergone a “metamorphosis” following the peace process thanks to a system of parity recruitment aimed at achieving a balance between Catholic and Protestant police officers. After the desired balance had been attained, an entirely competence-based recruitment process had been re-introduced.

Similarly, Nina Björby (Sweden), Vice- President for Democracy of the Assembly of European Regions (AER) and Chair of the Culture Committee in the Västerbotten region, thought that quotas were “essential at the beginning” and the best way to prompt men to surrender power and thereby to narrow the gap between empowerment and genuine power.

Describing her city’s initiatives that had enabled women to engage in participatory democracy, Anja Van den Durpel, Director of European Policy on Social Inclusion and Welfare of the City of Ghent, underlined the need to employ a variety of tools and techniques to engage citizens in all their diversity while ensuring mutual knowledge sharing. For her, communication meant understanding the languages and customs involved.

In her closing remarks, Ambassador Kuneva said the participants’ engagement in the LAB's discussions had been the “best response to the lack of credibility that affects politics” and that the local level was the most appropriate for meeting expectations in terms of respect for all forms of diversity.

World Forum for Democracy Strasbourg, France 20 November 2018
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