Liberal International is proud to share the 2022 Liberal International Gender Equality Report.
This report presents the findings of the 2022 Women in Political Parties Index, the first of its kind tool developed by Liberal International to assist our membership in evaluating and improving their inclusivity as political parties.
With the support of D66, the report presents the findings from the 2021 Women In Political Parties Index Survey, which LI member parties completed in the spring.
The WIPP Index was developed by LI to help members identify where and how they can improve diversity and inclusion within their party structures. The questions in the survey deal with themes such as parties’ female representation in parliament and their intra-party mechanisms to support gender equality.
For the first time, the WIPP Index includes data submitted by parties in the MENA region. The Gender Equality Report is enriched by diversity, and LI applauds those who contributed for the first time this year.
This year’s Report reveals that parliamentary system plays a major role in WIPPI scores. On average, parties located in countries with Proportional representation systems had the highest inclusivity indices.
The 2022 Report also reveals that women from responding parties are still not frequently appointed or elected to deal with “hard topics” like economics or national defense. LI is proud to have worked with Ukrainian politician Kira Rudik, advisor to the Dutch Minister of Defense and HRC member Katie Beelaerts, Zambian conflict expert and HRC member Rose Sakala, and Yemeni peace and security expert Yasameen al-Nadheri on peace and security topics, and will continue to promote space for women’s leadership in these policy areas.
This year’s WIPPI survey will launch in February.
Advancing gender equality and empowering women in politics is one of the LI Human Rights Committee’s long-standing priorities. The findings presented in the Gender Equality Report provide an excellent basis for planning future work within this field. LI will continue working on the WIPP Index and publishing the results annually, to be able to better identify trends and challenges regarding gender equality in politics. In providing these results, LI’s objective is to assist our member parties in promoting greater participation of women in politics, which research consistently shows benefits political parties, countries, and governments.
