Women’s participation in politics remains an ongoing challenge for Latin American countries and a constant concern of International IDEA. Argentina, one of the countries that has made the greatest progress in women’s parliamentary representation, was the venue for a seminar on progress and challenges in governance and gender on 26 September 2007.

Current and former congresswomen, directors of women’s issues for the city of Buenos Aires and two female presidential candidates were among the panelists who discussed equal opportunity and treatment for women, progress in legislation, pending tasks and obstacles, risks of setbacks in public policy on women’s participation and representation, and the need for citizens and women’s organizations to make a commitment to monitoring their rights and engaging in effective policy advocacy.

From the left: Elisa Carrió, Coalición Cívica’s presidential candidate, Andrea Rodríguez Goñi, UNIFEM, Fabiana Ríos, ARI congresswoman, and Diana Maffia, academic coordinator of the Hannah Arendt Institute, Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 2007. Photo: © Hannah Arendt Institute

In an overview of the progress in the region, Daniel Zovatto, Regional Director for International IDEA in Latin America and the Caribbean, highlighted the leading role played by Argentina, where women hold 35 per cent of the seats in the lower house of Congress.

That gain, as well as advances in countries such as Costa Rica and Peru, is largely due to electoral system reforms that established quotas for women, redesigned candidate slates to ensure that women carry equal weight, modified district size and established sanctions for violation of electoral laws.

Although quotas have increased women’s participation from less than 9 percent to an average of 22 per cent in the region, various countries still lag behind.

“The pending challenge is to make the great leap from inclusion to adequate representation,” Zovatto said. “We must also focus our attention on the degree of influence and commitment that women who are elected to public office have regarding gender issues that are still pending.”

Those challenges provided grist for round-table discussions moderated by Diana Maffía, congresswoman-elect from Buenos Aires for the Coalición Cívica and academic coordinator of the Hannah Arendt Institute, which organized the seminar in conjunction with International IDEA and UNIFEM.

The seminar was introduced by Maffía; Elisa Carrió, the Coalición Cívica’s presidential candidate; Vilma Ripoll, candidate from the Socialist Party, Zovatto and Kristen Sample, International IDEA Senior Programme Officer; and Andrea Rodríguez Goñi of UNIFEM.

One of the round tables was held in homage to the women who voted in the first election after winning suffrage in 1947 and was moderated by historian and congressional candidate Fernanda Gil Lozano, along with Congresswoman Fabiana Ríos (ARI), the first woman elected to a gubernatorial seat, who will take office in Tierra del Fuego in 2008.

The seminar, an example of International IDEA’s continuing efforts to promote inter-party dialogue on women’s participation, was part of the Institute’s ongoing work to expand and enhance women’s political participation and representation, focusing on electoral reform, women in political parties and women’s legislative caucuses.

“The experiences shared by the women who participated in the seminar highlighted the extraordinary progress that has been made in the last 20 years, while at the same time making clear the challenges that women continue to face as they seek to promote change from within political parties and the parliament for greater gender equity,” according to Sample.