This points to another important lesson: once again, most of the work on the relationship between women's representation and electoral systems has been carried out in developed countries; there is very little information for developing countries. The material that is available indicates that there is no direct correlation between a PR system and greater women's representation in developing countries. This brings us to the point stressed in Chapter 2: the need for co-ordination and organization among women MPs and their political parties, as well as between MPs and other interest organizations outside parliament. In other words, electoral systems are only one part of what should be a comprehensive strategy to enhance women's representation in parliament.

The following chapter, Chapter 4, looked at another mechanism for enhancing women's representation: the quota system. In this chapter, we discussed the pros and cons of quotas, defined the different types of quotas that are used, and provided an overview of the experience of various Scandinavian countries in implementing quota systems. It was argued that quota systems can lead to the following:

• Motivate political parties to actively recruit women to fulfil the quota; and

• Enable women to overcome the issue of tokenism (being token representatives and therefore vulnerable to manipulation by government or other centres of influence), and become part of a "critical mass" and thus able to act as a centre of power to influence change.

Again, it needs to be stressed that a quota system per se is not enough. The crucial factor is the process of implementation. The role played by political parties, particularly the need to have quotas implemented during the candidate selection and nomination processes, is critical. For quotas to have the desired effect, there is a need for:

• Precise and specific regulations about quotas;

• More women to be part of the active political process; and

• Co-ordinated pressure from women's organized groups to lobby for implementation.

The case studies on Costa Rica and India provided some perspective on these issues. Costa Rica is setting in place certain mechanisms to promote women's participation, for example: it has a woman vice-president; it has a law that assigns funds for political parties to promote women candidates; and a bill which would create female electoral districts to further boost women's representation is being finalized. Still, there is an expressed need to push for minimum quotas in order to enhance women's parliamentary representation.

In India, quotas for women's participation in local village councils, panchayats, has been successfully implemented. Discussions to introduce such quotas for women in parliament are a much debated policy.