Symposium by GQUAL on CEDAW’s GR40: Gender Parity, Power and Influence – The Path Less Taken

[Laura Nyirinkindi is Chair of the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls and a Senior Managing Consultant at Pro Initiatives Legal and Human Rights Agency]

The UN Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls (WGDAWG) has continually expressed concerns that, despite women and girls’ diverse experiences and realities, including their distinct vulnerabilities and assets, structural barriers and entrenched gender stereotypes continue to impede their full and effective participation in political and public life across public, state, and non-state levels. This persists notwithstanding the clear obligation of states to remove these obstacles, as mandated in Article 2(f) of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the CEDAW Committee’s authoritative pronouncements articulated in general recommendations. In the face of retrogressions and rollbacks of women’s and girl’s rights and gender equality, the WGDAWG has consistently called for countries to establish parity to guarantee women’s equal representation in public, political, and economic decision-making and leadership. 

The CEDAW Committee’s General Recommendation No. 40 on equal and inclusive representation of women in decision-making system highlights the imperative of achieving 50:50 parity. This comes 34 years after the recommendation of the UN Economic and Social Council in 1990 to increase women’s representation in leadership positions to 50% by 2000. In 1995, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA) acknowledged that even 30% of the targets had not been met in most countries, which pertains to date. The WGDAWG hails the adoption of GR40 for various reasons. GR40’s call for parity transcends numerical targets, addressing structural inequities and the need to eliminate patriarchy and its harmful consequences. Its emphasis on addressing challenges posed by climate change, conflicts, crises, and opportunities like technological advancements, including artificial intelligence, strengthens the imperative of fast-tracking gender parity. Perhaps most significantly, GR40’s emphasis on women’s access to equal power and influence in all decision-making arenas confronts an overarching challenge to meaningful inclusion beyond presence. 

Countries have made efforts to numerically increase women’s participation in decision-making as part of gender equality initiatives. However, there is less evidence of a deliberate focus on women’s impactful inclusion. While the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) emphasises the importance of women’s quantitative representation, requiring a critical mass of women leaders, it also advocates for their representation in executive and managerial positions in strategic and impactful decision-making roles. Furthermore, the BPfA obligates governments to enhance women’s capacity for leadership and decision-making and monitor their access to senior positions in government, non-governmental organisations, and the private sector. Clearly, the BPfA aimed at redistributing power and influence between men and women to shape policy and programmatic outcomes across all spheres of governance. GR40’s reiteration of these principles provides a critical framework to address the gaps between women’s de jure and de facto enjoyment of rights, promoting substantive gender equality. 

Also significant is the framing of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, whose target (5.5) underscores the need to ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all political, economic, and public decision-making levels. Effectiveness refers to how institutions and systems incorporate women’s inclusion and perspectives in decision-making, particularly at the leadership level. Such gender mainstreaming approaches optimise the efficient use of time, human, and financial resources to address both men’s and women’s rights and interests. The shortfalls in protecting women from conflict and insecurity, as highlighted in GR40, for example, highlight effectiveness gaps in peace processes, which continue to lack meaningful input from women due to exclusionary and highly masculinised hierarchical cultures and structures in security governance. Twenty-five years after United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1325, conspicuous implementation gaps persist, prompting the UN Secretary-General to advocate for security sector reforms that integrate the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. These deficits are not confined to peace and security, as emphasised in GR40. 

Transcending minimum thresholds and formats of participation to achieve meaningful inclusion of women has become a rallying cry for many activists, defenders, and monitors of gender equality. At the UN Women and CEDAW Committee regional consultations in Africa on GR40 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2024, women’s rights groups and feminist organisations raised concerns about the risks of women’s inclusion in decision-making based on tokenism. They emphasised that countries should consider temporary special measures as necessary building blocks in pursuing gender parity rather than ceilings or acts of benevolence towards women. Furthermore, they noted that such measures rarely extend to other essential public and state spaces, especially at the subnational level. Persistent gender stereotypes that treat women’s participation as nominal rather than symbolic continue to disempower women in decision-making, sometimes rendering their presence inconsequential.  

Women’s Accessibility to Strategic Leadership Roles in Governance 

CEDAW General Recommendation No. 23: Political and Public Life defines political and public life as a broad spectrum encompassing legislative, judicial, executive, and administrative powers. The BPfA highlights the benefits of women holding decision-making positions in Government and legislative bodies as they ‘contribute to redefining political priorities, placing new items on the political agenda that reflect and address women’s gender-specific concerns, values and experiences, and providing new perspectives on mainstream political issues.’ However, technical and gender-blind merit considerations are frequently applied to counter women’s inclusion in strategic roles, reinforcing systemic barriers to women’s inclusion. The diminishing of women’s contributions in senior-level decision-making spaces due to structural marginalisation in judiciaries, legislatures, and executive bodies presents serious setbacks to gender parity.   

While women’s appointment to the judiciary has improved, many countries still appoint few female judges in the higher echelons where consequential legal principles and ideologies are established, with significant consequences for gender-responsive justice. Religious and customary law courts, which have jurisdiction in matters of personal status law, including family matters, remain almost exclusively male-led. Little data collection is undertaken on gender leadership dynamics in the judiciary compared to other spheres of government. 

Many national judiciaries have traditionally refrained from applying temporary special measures in appointments to higher courts and senior positions, arguing that such leadership should be merit-based.  However, interpretations of merit are often imbued with gendered biases and assumptions. Merit-based selection criteria frequently overlook the impact of barriers such as the motherhood penalty, the burden of care work, women’s competing gender roles, the risks of violence and sexual harassment, and the dominant perception that men are inherently natural leaders. A study found that in African countries where women met and exceeded the qualifications for the highest judicial positions, even gender-responsive constitutions, laws, and quotas in place did not significantly change gender-disparate outcomes. This lack of progress is partly due to gatekeeping by male-dominated appointive bodies. 

In 2024, only 29 countries globally had ever been headed by a female executive, and while women held 23.3% of cabinet positions globally, only 15 countries attained gender parity. Executive cabinet positions significantly influence policies, programmes, and resource allocation priorities and frame feminist domestic and foreign policy. However, women in cabinet positions are predominantly and typically assigned to portfolios related to women’s rights and gender issues (84%). Fewer women are appointed to head the more influential portfolios such as foreign affairs (25%), justice (20%), finance (17%), fhome affairs (14%), defence (12%), energy (11%), and transport (8%), which have been traditionally male dominated. Alarmingly, nine countries had no female ministers at all. Gender mainstreaming strategies can help mitigate the risks of gender-blind, neutral, or negatively biased implementation; however, they do not eliminate the urgent need for inclusive governance based on parity. 

SDG Indicator 5.5.1 measures the proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments and local governments. Undeniably, temporary special measures play a role in attaining this target, and African nations have notably made strides in utilising them. 41 out of 55 (74.55%) African countries have implemented special measures,  including constitutional, legislative, or voluntary party mandates. Despite this progress, women constituted slightly above a quarter of the 13,057 parliamentarians in Africa.  In 2024, women globally held 35.5% of positions in deliberative bodies at the subnational level, with only two countries attaining gender parity. Africa recorded the lowest percentile, indicating less acceptance and influence of women in politics at that level. Gains have been made in women’s representation in legislatures, but progress in strategic leadership roles at the highest level and as committee chairs still falls short of parity. In the Americas, 34% of all parliamentary speakers were women as of 1 January 2024, while female speakers in sub-Saharan Africa stood at 28.4%, Europe at 27.1%, and Asia at 15.4%.  

No Place for Women? 

Violence against women as a manifestation of unequal power relations affects even women aspirants of or incumbents in leadership positions, exposing them to harassment, intimidation and physical harm.  The WGDAWG has highlighted the backlash faced by women in politics and activism, including constant exposure to the risk of sexual harassment and other forms of gender-based violence in public spaces, workplaces, and homes. Rampant sexism, harassment, and violence against women in politics have been reported across Africa, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Americas, and the Arab region as retribution for challenging cultural, social and religious norms. In 2023,  UN Women expressed concern about electoral gender-based violence in Africa during elections, which led to the deaths and withdrawals of some female candidates. African women parliamentarians with disabilities, young women, unmarried women, and women from minority groups reported being particularly victimised. GR40’s recommendation for comprehensive legislation addressing violence against women in political and public life is essential. Beyond addressing electoral violence, countries must ensure protections for women in public places, workplaces, and homes, to eliminate structural impediments to their participation.   

Allyship for Parity 

The discussions in Africa surrounding GR40 emphasised the need to deconstruct colonial legacies   in the context of gender equality. Narrow colonial constructions of power and association in some countries were retained in laws and practices that perpetuate class, ethnic and gender inequalities, fostering identity-based, patriarchal establishments rather than inclusivity. While most countries have adopted constitutional and legal frameworks for equality, ageist and gender-blind political and public models of participation exist, hindering gender parity for women and girls.  

Given the dire predictions that achieving full gender equality will take 300 years, it is crucial to nurture the gender parity struggle in future generations. Youth-led social movements are gaining momentum as young people work to dismantle paternalistic or ‘adult-centric’ age and gender-based barriers that disempower them, championing a vision of inclusive governance. The reimagining of public and political arenas by young men and women, built on the foundations of gender parity systems, must be encouraged and supported. The WGDAWG encourages men and boys who advocate for gender equality to engage constructively with women and girls, accepting feedback on the imperative to address harmful patriarchal patterns and behaviours that reinforce and perpetuate unequal gender roles, including the tendency for men to occupy leadership positions that women could hold.  

The WGDAWG believes that challenging the norms that sustain male privilege and dominance in public and political life is essential to overcoming systemic barriers to gender parity. The WGDAWG has critiqued the systems of paternalistic control and perceptions that restrict girls’ autonomy and right to participate in activism and public life, driven by structural gender-and age-based discrimination. Factors like race, ethnicity, health status, sexual orientation, gender identity, poverty, and disability intensify limitations on their participation rights. Thus, policies, resources, and digital and educational platforms promoting girls’ and young women’s rights to participate in public and political life are quintessential. These initiatives should integrate intersectional approaches to reach a diverse range of girls. Programmes that prepare girls for civic participation and leadership in decision-making are thus fundamental.  

Women in public and political decision-making often operate in highly contested environments. They are constantly exposed to gender stereotypes rooted in perceptions of their inferiority or illegitimacy from their peers and the public. Gender-responsive laws, robust safety measures, and institutional audits are necessary to dismantle these barriers.     

Given that parliaments remain male-dominated, the WGDAWG views male engagement as crucial for achieving gender goals, in holding men accountable for gender equality, and ensuring that democratic foundations are firmly founded on gender parity. GR40 provides a comprehensive framework to achieve these aims, but its effective implementation requires a collective and long-term commitment to action.