Today is international women's day and the women's commission commemorated it by signing a memorandum of understanding with the United Nations Development Programme.
The money will be spent on a situational analysis and advocacy strategy. It sounds fancy, but it's all about getting more women into electoral politics. Anne Marie Williams of the Women's Commission told us more:
Ann-Marie Williams, Exe. Dir. Nat. Women's Commission
"The overall project would be to inform the preparation of a collective advocacy strategy to mobilize actions around selective recommendations from the gender and politics situation analysis and all in an effort to increase the percentage
of women in the National Assembly and in the Cabinet. The work will not be easy but with everybody's collaboration it will
happen."
Dr. Francisco Roquette, Country Rep. U.N.D.P.
"In Belize women are facing significant challenges and while we have 31 members of the House of Representatives; none of the seats is currently held by women. We've done an analysis over the years even before Independence. We have identified only 6 women historically."
Ann-Marie Williams, Exe. Dir. Nat. Women's Commission
"If temporary special measures are not considered for women to enter politics and that's primarily because they have been left behind, it will take about 40 years for Belize as a developing country to be on par with some of the other countries in terms of 30% or 40% of women in politics."
Women make up 51% of the registered voters in Belize.
Email
Print