|
BOX 5. IPU's Gender Partnership Group
In the light of the results of the Specialized Inter-Parliamentary Conference on "Towards Partnership between Men and Women in Politics" (New Delhi, 14-18 February 1997), the IPU decided that all its work should henceforth take into account more constantly and explicitly than in the past the need to act in a spirit of partnership between men and women which
it defined as a "consolidating factor of democracy". It established, within its Executive Committee, a Gender Partnership Group of two men and two women, entrusted with seeing to it that the interests and visions of both parts of the population are
taken into account equally in all IPU's activities and decisions. This Group is due to report twice a year to the IPU Council (plenary policy-making body) and has immediately initiated consultations on the possibility of establishing a rule which would apply equally to all delegations failing to include at least one woman among their members, as required by IPU's Statutes, and which would decrease by two the number of votes to which those delegations would be entitled at the IPU Conference (the IPU has a system of weighted voting).
|
