Discussion tomorrow on making 25% quota for women in local government a reality

A forum discussion on operationalising the ‘25% quota for women in Local Government: Comparative Experiences on Advancing Women’s Political Participation’ will be held tomorrow from 2.30 p.m. to 5.00 p.m. at the lighthouse at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute, Horton Place, Colombo 7.

Notable attendees include Dr. Sudarshini Fernandopulle - State Minister of City Planning and Water Supply, Member of the Sectoral Oversight Committee on Women and Gender and the Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus; Hannah David - Conservative, National Director, Conservative Party Policy Forum, UK; Clare Haughey - MSP, Scottish National Party, Scottish Parliament; Nan Sloane - Labour, UK Local Government Councillor (FMR); Amra Khan - Women’s Parliamentary Caucus of Pakistan and Una McCauley - UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative for Sri Lanka.

Organisers said in Sri Lanka women have had the right to vote and participate in political activities since 1931. However, the representation of women in Sri Lankan politics has been the lowest among South Asian nations despite having had female heads of state for 25 out of the country’s 69 post-independence years. As of 2012, just 4% of the seats in provincial councils and 1.9% in local governments have been held by women. Sri Lanka ranked 180th out 190 in the IPU ranking of female representation in Parliament as of July 2017.  

As a step towards addressing this, the Parliament passed the Local Authorities Elections (Amendment) Act No. 1 of 2016 to increase women’s representation at the local government level. Until the amendment was passed in 2016, the Local Authorities Elections (Amendment) Act No. 22 of 2012 only provided for a 25% non-mandatory quota for both women and youth. Following the amendment, a 25% mandatory quota for women was introduced through a one-third increase in the total number of seats at the local authority level.  

Ensuring that this quota for women is successfully operationalised at the upcoming local government elections scheduled to be held this year is vital for demonstrating the benefits of women’s political participation. It will also have an impact on the scaling-up of such affirmative action to the provincial and national levels. In this regard, creating awareness of the proven benefits of women’s participation in political decision-making bodies is important. 

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) and the UN Women and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) have collaborated in organising this event in light of the discussion on the operationalisation of the mandatory 25% quota for women candidates at the local government level. 

The main purpose of the event is to share comparative experiences on advancing women’s political participation from the United Kingdom and Pakistan and to discuss the role of civil society in advancing women’s representation through political party systems.