Indonesia

Representing over half of the world's population, women are crucial, but still often overlooked representatives of their families, communities, and cultures in achieving a fully informed, engaged, and democratic electorate. With a number of upcoming national and municipal elections taking place around the world, we hope to continue to celebrate and build upon recent breakthroughs, ranging from the record percentage of women now serving in Rwanda's parliament to the 2009 election of four women into the parliament of Kuwait--the first women to accomplish this.

On April 10-11 in Jakarta, Indonesia, WLP held its 2010 Transnational Partners Convening (TPC) with partners from Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe, prior to the World Movement for Democracy's Sixth Assembly. WLP partners shared strategies for enhancing the Partnership's work in political participation, ending violence against women, our peer-to-peer mentoring and exchange program, and advocacy campaigns, in light of challenges such as increasing extremism, restrictive NGO laws, and a challenging funding landscape.

WLP organizes a series of panels including "Inclusive Democracy: Women and Men Working Together to Ensure the Promises of Democracy", "Towards 2020: Strategies for Realizing Democracy", technology training sessions and the fourth convening of the International Women's Democracy Network.