Women's Empowerment and Good Governance Through - amarc

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Best Experiences for an Action Research Process 14 Chapter 1. Community Radio as an Instrument in Promoting Women’s Participation in Governance By Mavic Cabrera-Balleza (23) The issue of good governance has become more central to the global agenda in recent years. Various UN agencies and intergovernmental organizations have organized meetings, conferences and put out publications on this issue. Members of the donor community are increasingly evaluating projects they support in terms of how these contribute to or ensure good governance. The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, a document signed by 22 donors and 57 partner countries in 2005, articulates that “while the volumes of aid and other development resources must increase to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, aid effectiveness must increase significantly as well to support partner country efforts to strengthen governance and improve development performance.” The emphasis on good governance comes from the realization that countries will only achieve their human development goals if they are able to assure the quality of governance. Human rights activists, gender equality advocates and development practitioners overall have reached consensus that good governance and sustainable human development are inextricably linked and that developing people’s capacity for good governance should be the primary means to eliminate poverty. A paper developed by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and
15 Best Experiences for an Action Research Process the Pacific explains that good governance has eight major characteristics. It is participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive, and follows the rule of law. It assures that corruption is minimized, that the views of minorities are taken into account and that the voices of the most vulnerable in society are heard in decision making. It is also responsive to the present and future needs of society (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific). Given all these characteristics, gender becomes an intrinsic element of good governance. Women’s equal and just representation and participation in governance is therefore a requirement in any effort to ensure good governance. However, at present, this remains more of a wish than a reality. A United Nations Development Programme report states that: “In addition to basic inequalities in access to education and resources, and an unequal share of the burdens of poverty, women continue to be under-represented in formal decision-making structures. Although women are increasingly active in community support systems, gender disparities persist in public positions at all levels: local, regional, national, and global. With the exception of the Nordic countries, where women’s participation in parliament is 38.8 per cent and in Arab States where it is 3.5 per cent, the global average for women’s participation in parliament is only 15 per cent (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2000). The same UNDP report adds: “Despite the fact that the majority of the world’s poor are women and girls, poverty reduction strategies insufficiently address the differential impact of poverty by gender and inadequately target gender equality as a core objective. Whereas women’s contributions to the global economy are growing rapidly, women’s labour remains undervalued and under-counted in national accounts; and data disaggregated by gender are still poorly developed.” Media and governance The centrality of the media’s role in politics and governance is no longer debatable. What continues to be the subject of debate is the social standpoint that media institutions and media practitioners take in socio-political landscapes and in the business of governance. The politics and governance structures are largely mediated spaces experienced by individuals and communities through the media forms accessible to them. People’s participation in governance is greatly influenced by how the media report and interpret political events and issues and how
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Women's Empowerment and Good Governance Through - amarc

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