OSCE partners with gender institutions to further promote gender equality in BiH

The OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina signed a memorandum of understanding on 1 April 2014 in Sarajevo with the BiH Gender Equality Agency to support a project on promoting gender equality among political parties and increasing the visibility and skills of women candidates.

Over the next six months, the project, which will be implemented by the BiH Gender Equality Agency, will run eight workshops to enhance the campaigning skills of approximately 400 women candidates. It will also focus on opening dialogue about gender equality with political parties.

“The level of political participation of women remains low at all levels in BiH,” said Ken Palmer, the Deputy Director of the Human Dimension Department at the OSCE Mission to BiH. “Strengthening the voices of women during their campaigns is critical and we will be working with the Gender Equality Agency to help ensure greater commitment of political parties to do so and promote qualified candidates.”

Samra Hadžiabdić Filipović, the Director of the BiH Gender Equality Agency, said: “Percentages are not the goal we aim to achieve for their own sake, but they are a good indicator of the status of gender equality, including in elections. While women make up more than 50 per cent of members in most of the political parties in the BiH Parliamentary Assembly and there is a relatively high percentage of women in decision-making party bodies, they are still underrepresented on election lists, and they only account for around 20 per cent of elected candidates.”

On 25 March 2014, the Mission also signed a memorandum of understanding with the RS Gender Centre which will implement a project aimed at strengthening gender equality through the development of municipal Gender Action Plans. A partnership project with the FBiH Gender Centre is also being developed.