On 19 October 2020, we are proud to launch the inaugural Liberal International Gender Equality Report!
This report presents the findings of the 2020 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.
The Index is based on a self-assessment survey, which was opened to the LI membership for the first time in March 2020, and all eligible parties were able to submit their results until June 2020. The result of this data collection is presented in this report.
The results find that in many ways, liberals are at the forefront of the global fight for gender equality. The global liberal family is consistently ahead of the regional trends for representation of women in parliaments, and many have comprehensive training programmes to strengthen and empower female candidates.
Despite this, many challenges remain. Many liberal parties have still never elected a female leader. Work remains to ensure that our party structures are equipped to record and follow up the threats and harassments we know that female candidates and politicians face. We must continue to actively acknowledge these challenges, and to train and educate our memberships as we strive to become more inclusive as political parties.
In providing these results, Liberal International’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.
