Background Document - Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy

dialogue across party lines. It also brings together nineteen political youth and student
organisations from different backgrounds. It aims, among other things, to enable
capacity building of the youth and student wings of political parties.
The small-scale study on women’s role in Nepalese youth politics and in the work
of the platform clearly showed that Nepalese society still relies strongly on patriarchal
values and these were reflected in the political parties overall and in the scheduling of
youth activities particularly. Political parties were dominated by a male political culture
and it created barriers to women’s advancement towards high positions.
In the interviews, young females felt that gender quotas had substantially improved
their political participation even in the Joint Youth and Students’ Platform. A
common wish was that the quotas would be extended to the decision-making level so
that women could be involved on the top level. DemoFinland has also organised a successful
exchange about experiences between women’s units in Ghana and Tanzania.
Similarly, NIMD has organised discussions between youth units of different countries,
regions and political parties in order to share knowledge about difficulties for
young people in being meaningfully included in political parties. Initiatives such as
Suriname and The Netherlands youth wing, the Bolivian partner program (FBDN), The
Youth Commission of the Permanent Forum of Political Parties in Guatemala, were
implemented to increase knowledge among young people.
THE AUSTRALIAN ‘NEXT GENERATION’ INITIATIVE 14
Following a call from its members to increase young women’s political en-gagement
in decision-making positions, the Labor Party in Australia has put in place the ‘Next
Generation’ initiative. This initiative aims at giving real-life experiences of political
action to young women. The program consists of two streams: a residential program
and placement in a campaign.
The residential program aims at placing young women with women who hold a
decision-making position, such as a high position in a political office, a union or a nongovernment
organisation. The second part of the program is to place young women in
a political campaign. As such, young women will follow a candidate that is running for
election and learn first hand the ‘unwritten rules’ of a political campaign.
These two programs are associated with workshops: one is called ‘Empowering
Women’s Professional Development Program’ and the other is speed date mentoring.
The first workshop aims at ‘providing political skills training, including campaign
planning, government lobbying, affirmative action strategies and social change advocacy’.
Speed date mentoring is aimed at providing a platform for women to support
women, such as Networking Events. These events are tailored for young women. The
women’s wing of the Labor Party is using a wide range of mediums that include Facebook,
Twitter, the political party base and university political groups to reach out to
young women via this program.
After running it for two years, an evaluation of the ‘Next Generation’ initiative has
shown real enthusiasm as members asked to retain it.
THE COMMITTEE TO PROMOTE WOMEN IN POLITICS IN CAMBODIA
A grant was made by the UNIFEM/UNDEF program to promote women in politics in
Cambodia. This was used to improve public support for women politicians. It included
strategies to achieve objectives such as training, advocacy, dialogue, civic education
and the development of a peer support network. This project was put into place in 12
of the 24 provinces of Cambodia.
14 A special thanks to Hutch Hussein, EMILY’s List Australia National Co-Convenor who was interviewed
to share information about this initiative.
WOMEN IN POLITICS DANISH INSTITUTE FOR PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY PAGE 17