At the aim of

“Promoting women’s political participation

and advancing legal reforms

for gender equality”

2014 Program

“Count Me In” Women in 2014 Parliament and Local Councils Elections

Count Me In .. Women in 2014 Elections

Main Obstacles To Be Tackled ..

• Few qualified female political cadres who can run for elections and positively participate.

• The negative idea among political parties, decision makers and public towards women political participation.

Goals/Objectives :

• To reach a critical mass of skilled and qualified women, who can actively participate in both Egyptian “Local Council Elections" and “Parliament Elections“; to increase women participation “as voters, assistants or candidates” and enhance their performance.

• To train women as political assistants

• To change the negative ideas about women political participation into positive and supportive ones.

Activities :

150 participants from 4 different Egyptian governorates – ages from 25 to 40- were divided in 2 groups:

15 women/governorate running for Parliament Elections (group 1)

15 women/governorate running for Local Council Elections (group2)

The program was wrapped up with a final event with the participation of a female member of the Spanish Parliament.

Outcomes :

150 qualified women to:

• Run their own electoral campaigns,

• Play an efficient role as parliament or local council members,

• Play an efficient role as assistants for the current elections candidates.

2015 Program

Supporting women political

participation through

“Gender Committees" in political parties

• Parliament is expected to approve laws to guarantee women and children’s rights mentioned in 2014 Constitution.

• More than 20 constitutional articles ensure the State protects women’s rights politically, financially and socially, but laws are still needed to guarantee the application of rights, such as:

- EQUALITY : “equal opportunities without discrimination”

- Better life conditions specially for poor, slums inhabitants and women with special needs.

- Women’s right to give citizenship to their children

- Ensure adequate female representation in parliaments

On the other hand, no approval was given to Parliament quota, while a quarter of the local seats were reserved for women.

While the Constitution guarantees equality, State Council still refuses accepting female employment applications.

Main Obstacles To Be Tackled ..

• Decision makers of political parties do not support (financially or technically) qualified women to be nominated as eligible candidates,

• Female candidates do not have support of any kind,

• Political parties do not pay attention to the necessity to support women political participation,

• Very low female representation percentage in Parliament and Local Councils.

• General Objetive :

To create powerful Committees within the political parties (of different ideologies) to support women political participation and to put pressure on decision makers in order to reach an acceptable percentage of female representation in the Parliament and decision making positions in Egypt.

Target group : Direct : 80 Female activist members (21-45 years old) from various Egyptian political parties. Indirect : A minimum of 1200 – 1500 members of political parties of different ideologies and trends.

Future activities (coming 2 years) :

80 women from 3 governorates will participate in the following activities :

• Stage 1 : TOT

• Stage 2: New committees or entities according to the new strategies learned

• Stage 3: Networking

• Stage 4: Exchanging experiences at international level

Thank You