Women in Politics - 'Train the Trainer' Course | 10-14 November 2008
Pacific Island countries have strived to get more women elected into parliaments for some time. While recognising that dealing with the barriers to women’s political participation and decision making will take time, there is now a consensus that women’s lack of representation in the region needs to be tackled with a strong sense of urgency.
To this end, CDI’s inaugural Women in Politics “Train the Trainer” course was held on10-14 November 2008 in Canberra. The course builds on previous capacity-building efforts in the region, and was designed to up-skill participants on key issues such as effective ways of dealing with culture and leadership issues, the impact of electoral systems and political reforms on women’s representation, pros and cons of party quotas and reserved seats, gender differences in voter behaviour, influencing; lobbying; resource mobilisation, and networking.
After a highly competitive selection process, 18 participants from eight nations (Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Timor-Leste, Fiji, Indonesia, Kiribati, and Tonga) took part in the week long train-the-trainer course and developed action plans. It is anticipated that the action plans developed during the course will form the basis of national level training in the near future.
Mr Bob McMullan, Australia's Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance, opened the course. The course was well supported by Australia’s main political parties, academia and the private sector. Australian federal parliamentarians took an active role in the course - Anna Burke (MP Deputy Speaker), Senator Christine Milne (Deputy Leader, the Australian Greens), Senator Claire Moore (ALP), and Senator Marise Payne (Liberal Party of Australia) were among the speakers.
All participants hold important positions in thier national parliament, local level governments and assemblies, national government departments, NGOs or the private sector in their countries. Their participation will, we hope, help them in their goal of getting more women elected in the next cycle of elections.
This course was convened by CDI's special adviser on gender issues, Dr Sun-Hee Lee.
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