Women in politics to engage in five-day workshop

Women from the various political parties as well as others who are involved in social advocacy will gather at the National Stadium on Monday, January 21, to commence a five-day workshop on Transformational Leadership.

GNOW, in collaboration with UN Women, the Caribbean Institute for Women in Leadership (CIWIL), and the Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS), has organised the Advancing Women’s Transformational Leadership Training for Gender Justice in the Caribbean workshop carded for Monday, January 21 to Friday, January 25, 2013.

“This workshop is one of the objectives in a regional project to support women’s equal participation in politics, decision-making and the advancement of transformational leadership by women in the Caribbean. This workshop will also be conducted in Barbados and Trinidad as these two islands, along with Grenada, are in preparations for a general election this year (2013),” said a statement from the local committee.

The statement further explained that the various rationale posited for low levels of women participation in parliamentary leadership roles include the result of culture of exclusion, lack of community support, bias within political structures, limited resource, absence of systems for mentoring women, lack of transparency in selection processes within political parties and inadequate understanding by women about the functioning of the political system.

“These obstacles are systemic, woven into the economic, cultural and political fabric of societies,” said that statement, which at the same time pointed out that the need for greater numbers of women in political leadership and national decision-making stems from the understanding that equal participation is a basic human right and that sustainable development can only be achieved if there is equitable participation of all citizens in governance and national decision-making.

The training workshop will be based on an active learning model that allows participants to analyse, assess and act upon complex issues. It will allow each participant to develop analytical skills, sound judgement, and the leadership potential to effectively pursue issues that are deemed important to sustainable national development.

The statement said sessions will emphasise a holistic approach to leadership through which participants will be expected to reflect and review their personal history in relation to the issues being examined.

Content for workshop will focus on:

a) Building understanding of Caribbean political economy, democracy and development issues;

b) Building skills in political activism through a focus on political party and electoral processes, parliamentary dynamics; and constituency/stakeholder outreach;

c) Assist women political actors to develop advocacy and networking skills in support for gender-sensitive policies/legislation and other issues of national interest;

d) Strengthen women’s political leadership skills and capacities to better perform their legislation, oversight and representative functions;

e) Gender-responsive and ethical decision-making;

f) Equitable and effective leadership approaches and dynamics;

g) Partnership building with civil society for governance accountability; and

h) Effective political and social communications.

A multi-disciplinary team of facili-tators skilled in adult education processes will lead the training, with demonstrated competence in gender analysis, political science, philosophy, political organising, civil society organisation and leadership development. (LS)