WUNRN
MOROCCO - NATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR
WOMEN IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT
2009-03-11
The Moroccan government wants to end women's marginalisation from politics. "The political culture that we have now is open to women as well as men, and yet many women don't think about going into politics," said one analyst.
By Sarah Touahri for Magharebia in Rabat
The Moroccan government has pledged to increase women's political representation at local levels. Following a reform of the Commune Charter that set a minimum quota of 12% for female representation, the government now intends to get the message out to the public. A national awareness campaign entitled "Women in communes: a driving-force for local governance" was launched on Saturday (March 7th).
"The aim is to exceed the set quota for the level of women's representation for the first time," said Minister of Social Development Nouzha Skalli. "The campaign is the fruit of commitments made by the government, parliament, political parties, the media and other partners."
"The increase in women's representation at the commune level from 0.56% to 12% of seats is a major step forward for efforts to consolidate a modern, democratic society. We've already reached this target and are now hoping to exceed it by a long way."
Skalli added that the objective was finally to end the marginalisation of women in local government.
The campaign will include media messages and community-level activities, and will highlight success stories in the hope of raising public confidence in women's abilities. It will be run jointly by Skalli's department and the Ministry of the Interior.
"In the past, people have tended to doubt women's abilities in the field of politics," Professor of sociology Rahma Benadir told Magharebia. "Now people know that women are good at running things and can shine in local government. The political culture that we have now is open to women as well as men, and yet many women don't think about going into politics."
Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa called on civil society to help raise women's awareness and encourage them to get involved in politics by both voting and running for office.
Benmoussa
announced that the sum of 10 million dirhams has been allocated pursuant to the
2009 Finance Act to the Fund for the Promotion of Women's Political
Representation.
Political parties and civil-society associations that campaign for women's political representation have been called on to propose initiatives. The Fund's central committee, which will be made up of representatives of all parties concerned, is due to meet imminently and will make proposals for programmes.
A system aimed at encouraging women's representation on commune councils was created as part of the government's efforts to fund parties' local election campaigns. "The aim is to get political parties to focus on women by giving them leading positions on candidate lists and in constituencies where representatives are elected on an individual basis," Benmoussa explained.
"The principle of boosting women's representation is now well established in national politics," said Party of Progress and Socialism Secretary-General Ismail Alaoui. "Our political parties are in complete agreement on the issue."
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