LESSONS ON GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN’S POLITICAL EMPOWERMENT Women’s meaningful participation is a human rights imperative and is essential to election credibility, integrity and democratic governance. 5 Women’s equal representation in government is a precondition for truly inclusive and representative democracies. There is also ample evidence to suggest that having more women in elected office increases public trust in institutions and improves both the policymaking process and the policies themselves. 6 Although 187 of 194 UN Member States ratified CEDAW and “the principle of equality of women and men has been affirmed in the constitutions and laws of most countries and in all international instruments,” women remain woefully underrepresented in political leadership. 7 As of 2021, women represent 5.9 percent of elected heads of state and 6.7 percent of heads of government overall; the global average for women in parliament is 25.5 percent. 8 Additionally, the 2021 World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report found that the global gender gap in political empowerment remains the largest of the four areas tracked and that, at the current rate of progress, “it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.” 9 Legal frameworks are necessary to promote gender equality and women’s political participation but insufficient to ensure women’s equal participation in elected office, let alone public life. Gender, Elections and the Courts Countries have taken a variety of executive and legislative approaches, including constitutional provisions and “temporary special measures,” such as quotas and other forms of affirmative action, to address the persistent challenges of gender equality in politics. A number of these approaches have led to legal challenges, amplifying the role of courts in interpreting and upholding the implementation of these provisions. On February 25, 2021, IFES launched Election Judgments, a database for national election judgments from around the world. 10 Intended to facilitate the exchange of sound precedents across jurisdictions, this curated database enables judges, election professionals and researchers to filter and search cases by topic or thematic area, including “State Parties shall take appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the political and public life of the country and, in particular, shall ensure to women, on equal terms with men, the right: To vote in all elections and public referenda and to be eligible for election to all publicly elected bodies; [and] To participate in the formulation of government policy and the implementation thereof and to hold public office and perform all public functions at all levels of government.” 5 IFES, supra note 1. 6 See generally, Lucina Di Meco, #ShePersisted. Women, Politics & Power in the New Media World, Wilson Ctr. (2019), https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5dba105f102367021c44b63f/t/5dc431aac6bd4e7913c45f7d/1573138953986/191106+SHEPERSISTED_Fin al.pdf 7 UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), CEDAW General Recommendation No. 23: Political and Public Life, para. 1, 1997, https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CEDAW/Shared Documents/1_Global/INT_CEDAW_GEC_4736_E.pdf 8 Inter-Parliamentary Union & United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, Map, Women in Politics: 2021, unwomen.org (2021), https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2021/women-in-politics-2021en.pdf?la=en&vs=353 9 Global Gender Gap Report, World Economic Forum (Mar. 2021), http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2021.pdf 10 The Elections Judgments database is supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Global Elections and Political Transitions (GEPT) Program. 6