Political Party Guidelines Eng

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5. A Gender Action Plan for a political party5.1 Principals of the Gender Action PlanTo go ahead with planning equality policies, it helps a great deal if there is a special women’s association– so called Women’s Wing (WW) – in your party. All around the world WWs of political partieshave been doing invaluable work for the fulfilment of gender equality within their own parties, alsocooperating with other WWs and stakeholders. The work of the WW has to be integrated in the workof the mother party. So, if there is no WW in your party, maybe it is time to establish one.Again, the work of writing the GAP is best done if an internal work group, with a clear mandate fromthe leadership of the party and with representatives from the WW (if it exists), is established. Afterthe work has been completed, the GAP must be approved of at the level where other party policies areendorsed.International IDEA identifies the following principals as key requirements for a good gender policy(much of the following has been adopted from International IDEA’s Framework for Developing GenderPolicies for Political Parties 39 ):• Promote substantive equality rather than mere formal equality (see Chapter 3.8).• Use special measures to promote gender equality, such a quotas and parity in the decisionmaking organs of your party.• Seek to address the situation of especially marginalized/affected groups among women.• Reconciliation of family and professional life – everyone must be able to take part atreasonable hours.• Collection of sex-disaggregated statistics and gender based expertise within your party.After defining the principals, the objectives (goals) have to be set.5.2 Objectives of the Gender Action PlanOn a general level the goals of your party’s Gender Action Plan should be:• Promote equal rights and opportunities for women and men to participate in Myanmar’s /your region’s political decision-making.• Facilitate women’s leadership in your party’s decision-making and governance structures.• Enhance the decision-making powers and resources of the WW within your party.• Aim to attain a critical mass of women leaders within your party and achieve gender parityin candidate lists.26GUIDELINES FOR POLITICAL PARTIES IN MYANMAR
• Increase women’s participation and influence in your party’s programme development.• Develop mechanisms to follow up how well the gender policy is being followed.Next, these general principals have to be turned into more specific actions. Following up how well thegoals are being reached gets much easier if you at the same time identify indicators for each goal. Youcan use the indicators as a checklist, which will help you to follow the implementation of the plan.Here is a model for a GAP in a table format. Your GAP does not have to be exactly like this one. It isimportant that the measures, which you choose for advancing gender equality, are such that they canbe implemented and monitored within your party. However, it is worth going through this model planwith time and thought.5.3 A model for a Gender Action PlanENHANCING GENDER EQUALITY WITHIN THE POLITICAL PARTYSTRUCTURES, POLICIES AND CULTUREObjective of the GenderAction PlanTo ensure that your party’s legalframework and governing documentsare gender sensitiveSuggested Concrete Steps ofAction• Develop and build party leadership’ssupport for gender sensitivityin party documents• Establish a work group to assessyour political party’s legal frameworkand governing documents,ensure gender balanced representationin this work group, makesure mandate for the work comesfrom party leadership• Train the workgroup on genderequality if needed• Assess the party documents• Take needed measures to ensurethat the documents are gendersensitive, for example adopt astatement on gender equality inthe parties’ founding documents• Draft and adopt a Gender ActionPlan (GAP)Examples for Checklist• Political party’s legal framework andgoverning documents have specialmentions or actions for genderequality and equal representation(for example quota systems in use,role of the WW, parity in leadership)• GAP in place and implementedGENDER EQUALITY: A SHORTCUT TO DEVELOPMENT AND PROSPERITY 27
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