The Â鶹Çř School of Continuing Studies (SCS) welcomed once more Members of Parliament and parliamentary staff representatives for the 2024 cohort of the Parliamentary Residency. The parliamentary programs for newly elected MPs and parliamentary staff offer a space for learning, discussion, and applied experiences to work towards democracy within their parliaments and countries.
An Improvement Trend in Women's Representation in Parliaments
This year, one of the special topics of the 2024 cohort of the Parliamentary Residency was the role of women in parliaments and how to foster inclusive democracy. Organizations like the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) have been reporting since 1995 on the progress of women's representation in parliaments and legislative bodies around the world.
According to their “Women in Parliament 2023” report , there has been remarkable progress in women's representation in parliaments. As of January 2024, the share of women MPs stands at 26.9%, and 64 parliamentary chambers around the world are led by women. The year review also highlights that, at the regional level, the Americas have the highest proportion of women elected to parliament in 2023 with a 42.5% representation (elections were held in 9 chambers in 6 countries), and that African countries have made the most progress compared to past years after the elections held in 2023 in lower/single chambers.
“We need to continue to create a culture of inclusion and diversity where women are valued, respected, and supported for their contributions and potential. We need to talk about our journeys and share the difficult roads we took to get where we are, as well as what worked and what didn’t work. We need to build a community of both men and women.” said Nadege Firsova, Ph.D., during her participation in the residency. Firsova is currently doing applied research on women in leadership and is the academic director of the Administration and Governance Domain at the Â鶹Çř School of Continuing Studies.
Still Much to Be Done
Despite the advances, progress has not always been linear, and contrasts between and within regions persist. While an increasing number of countries have taken decisive steps to improve women’s representation in politics, with many reaching historic milestones on this front, other countries have rolled back on policies aimed at increasing and guaranteeing parliaments as safe spaces for women in political representation and leadership. There is much more to be done.
Equity, Diversity, Inclusion: Necessary Steps to Achieve Democracy
During the session “Towards Inclusive Democratic Governance” the Dean of Continuing Studies, Carola Weil, Ph.D., emphasized that “we can have whole debates just on democracy and how do we define it, but the important thing to agree on is that we need to recognize it does not just happen; we should not treat it as given. Democracy does not automatically survive; it needs to be nurtured.”
Additionally, Dean Weil underlined that conceptual distinctions between the terms Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion are necessary for policymaking and the parliamentary sphere, “as the bigger the mandate of policy items, the more challenging they are to fund, implement, and evaluate(…) if we have clarity on which piece of the EDI puzzle we are trying to address through policy, the more likely it is to have successful outcomes.” Dean Weil added that “by having diversity, we are also addressing inclusion, but the recognition of diversity is often only the first step to getting to a more inclusive and sustainable mode of governing and decision-making.”
Gender-Sensitive Policies to Achieve Gender Equality in Parliaments
On the topic of Gender and Women in Parliaments, Professor Nyokabi Kamau, Executive Director at the Center for Parliamentary Studies and Training of Kenya, shared both her academic and professional expertise. She stated that a gender-sensitive parliament was premised on the principle of gender equality – that is, both men and women have an equal right to participate in its structures and processes, without discrimination and recriminations.
“What has been the struggle is that, once women are already in parliament, challenges still exist. As an example, maternity leave policies for members of parliament were not in place in 2012,” said Prof. Kamau. In addition to access and composition of parliament regarding gender equality, she mentioned more components to take into consideration, such as non-sexist environments, facilities suited to men and women, working modalities, and mainstreaming gender in all the work of parliament beyond the seats, including sensitive political parties and commissions of parliament.
Prof. Kamau added that institutional reforms, whether quotas or codes of conduct, can only be effective if they are meticulously designed, and if their implementation and impacts are closely and consistently monitored. Parliaments and political parties alike will need to be proactive in rising to the challenge and guaranteeing safe spaces for women taking public office. As Prof. Kamau pointed out, a combination of legal and policy frameworks needs to be in place to support laws towards gender equality, objectives, plans of action for parliaments, and gender-sensitive working policies.
Gender-based Violence and Women in Parliaments
Experts at the IPU have also warned of a concerning trend on the rise: in 2023, many prominent female leaders quit politics altogether around the world. This growing trend of female political leaders leaving politics, coupled with rising violence and harassment against women in public roles, underscores the importance of addressing gender-based violence and discrimination to ensure equitable representation and sustainable progress toward gender equality.
The guest speaker, Cassidy Bereskin, Ph.D.researcher and Clarendon Scholar at the Oxford Internet Institute and author of “Parliamentary Handbook on Disinformation, AI, and Synthetic Media,” presented to participants the importance for policymakers globally to create legislative tools in the era of deepfakes and generative AI. Bereskin emphasized that, in recent years, legislators around the world have been working towards regulating AI-related threats that disproportionately target and undermine the credibility and dignity of women, particularly those in high-profile positions and women in parliaments.
Additionally, Bereskin underlined the importance of coordinated efforts to reduce AI-related violence against women in parliaments: “In the context of threats like political and synthetic disinformation, a multi-stakeholder approach is increasingly critical. This can involve cross-sector dialogue and coordination between governments, tech companies, and researchers to incentivize the adoption of mechanisms to tackle emergent AI-related threats to women in parliament and beyond and foster a healthier information ecosystem.” Bereskin also pointed out that initiatives like the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) created open technical standards for content authentication, particularly for audio-visual content, and companies like GPTZero are deploying AI models and other technologies to help individuals and organizations discern AI-generated text from human-created text.
Legislation in parliaments does matter, and “regulatory measures such as the White House Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence, as well as the recently ratified EU AI Act, are helping to spur the adoption of important tools for labeling and disclosing synthetic vs. AI-generated content and aiming to strike a balance between harnessing the benefits of AI while safeguarding fundamental rights,” added Bereskin.
“Researchers are also crucial to these efforts, such as by investigating questions such as the effectiveness of these tools, the public’s receptiveness, and their downstream impacts. Ultimately, I believe a carefully calibrated approach that combines legislative and regulatory measures, technological solutions, and evidence-based research will foster a safer and more transparent information ecosystem for women in parliaments, and society more broadly,” concluded Bereskin.
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