1st Panel Discussion and Workshop of Promotion Women’s Political Representation in Southeast Asia

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Jakarta, 26 October 2011
Bandung, 27-28 October 2011

 Kemitraan has formed partnership with the National Democratic Institute (NDI) as well as the Indonesian Women’s Coalition (KPI), Persatuan Kesedaran Komuniti Selangor (EMPOWER) from Malaysia, the Women’s Caucus from Timor-Leste, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), and the Center for Popular Empowerment from the Philippines to work together on strengthening the political rights of women and democracy by advocating the promotion of increased women’s political representation through regional partnership initiatives.

Kemitraan conducted two events, which are multi-party panel discussion on 26 October 2011 and two-day workshop of promotion of women’s political representation on 27-28 October 2011 in order to achieve two substantial objectives: (1) to increase capacity to conduct and collaborate on activities for the promotion of democracy in Southeast Asia; (2) to advocate policy frameworks towards the progress of achieving a minimum target of 30 percent women’s political representation in Southeast Asia.
The multi-party panel discussion conducted in a half day panel discussion which invited four different political parties from different countries that Kemitraan working on for IKAT US Component 1. In this multi-party panel discussion, we highlight the parties that have included the affirmative action for women in their internal party development. The speaker of the multi-party panel discussion are Ms. Zuraida Kamaruddin (Partai Keadilan Rakyat – Malaysia), Mr. Romahurmuziy (Secretary General of Partai Persatuan Pembangunan – Indonesia), Mr. Utama Sandjaja (moderator from Kemitraan), Mr. Hanif Dhakiri (Former Secretary General of Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa, Member of Parliament – Indonesia), and Ms. Mariquit C.S. Melgar (Akbayan Party – Philippines). This panel discussion, followed by the discussions or question and answer session, included participants not only from women’s political caucuses and women’s NGOs from five countries, but also more party leaders or members from Indonesian parties. The important outcomes from this panel discussion are sharing experience, challenges and lessons learned on the party mechanism for implementing affirmative action for increasing women’s political representation and developing links or network among political leaders and activists for the issue of women’s political representation in five countries.

Two-day workshop’s purpose is to support the network of the women’s caucuses and the women’s NGOs participating in this workshop in enhancing their capacities of women in politics and decision making positions, including bringing a space for women’s caucus members to share their experiences and good practices. In their opportunity for participating in this workshop, the participants also learnt other countries experiences on how political parties’ structures have accommodated affirmative action for women in their platform. The important outcomes from this workshop are (1) develop links or network among women’s caucuses and NGOs from five countries, (2) capacity development for the women’s caucuses members/leaders attended in the workshop through sharing experiences sessions and skill building sessions, (3) more efficient and stronger women’s caucuses and women NGOs, (4) support to women’s caucuses to have more cooperation with CSOs, and other organizations, and (5) draft action plan from the groups of participants by country and draft action plan from all participants for regional level.

Click this link to get summary of the two-day workshop

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