Legislation promoting the implementation of a 30 percent quota for
women's participation in elected bodies has been proposed in Algeria.
Despite the importance of such a positive measure in a country in which
the number of seats held by women in parliament decreased from 35 in
1962 to 30 in 2007, actions to implement such a bill are only now
taking place.
On 20 December 2009, the United Nations International Research and
Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW) and the
Center for Arab Women Training and Research (CAWTAR) organized a
workshop in Algiers to raise awareness of women's roles in politics and
their relationships to the media. During the event, which was mostly
attended by journalists and policy experts, the quota issue was
revisited and debated. One attendee, the Minister of Family and the
Status of Women, Ms Saadia Nouara Jaafar, who chaired the opening and
closing sessions, declared her support for the adoption of a quota
system that would allow women to access decision-making positions.
Mzah Nasira, an Algerian writer, also expressed the opinion that: "The
quota system is the only democratic formula that allows women to enter
politics."
The workshop was a product of the joint UN-INSTRAW/CAWTAR project
"Strengthening women's leadership and participation in politics and
decision-making in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia," which is funded by
the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID).
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