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Abuja, March 26, 2007- The Club of Madrid today launched the African Women Leaders Project (AWLP) at a meeting in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. The project will provide high-level support to women leaders in Nigeria, Sierra Leone and a third country still to be determined. This 18-month initiative, undertaken with funding from the European Commission’s Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights, will contribute to the strengthening of female political leadership in the project countries and, in the long-term, to greater public confidence in women political leaders and increased women’s political participation.

Project co-chairs are Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, and Benjamin Mkapa, former President of Tanzania. They and other Club of Madrid members –66 former Presidents and Prime Ministers of democratic countries around the world– are expected to participate in the project.

Project staff from the Club of Madrid and its partners are meeting in Abuja this week (March 25-27) to begin project implementation. Local implementing partners are the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) and the Forum of Nigerian Women in Politics (FONWIP) in Nigeria; and the Campaign for Good Governance (CGG) and the Network of Women Ministers and Parliamentarians (NEWMAP) in Sierra Leone. International associate partners include UNIFEM, host of the implementation meeting, European Parliamentarians for Africa (AWEPA), and the Council of Women World Leaders.

The project seeks to provide women leaders new resources and skills to strengthen their political leadership. It will identify and share best practices from the region and internationally on increasing women’s political participation, including gender quotas and other affirmative action policies. The project also will facilitate dialogue and the sharing of experiences among women parliamentarians and other women leaders in the project countries, and outstanding women political leaders in Africa and throughout the world. It will establish high-level, specialized networks among reform-minded leaders in the region and internationally to enable the sharing of knowledge and resources; promote greater gender awareness on the obstacles to women’s political participation and the centrality of equal political participation for a functioning democracy; and increase women's political participation in target countries through devising relevant advocacy strategies and the identification of feasible policy options.

Today’s international context offers opportunities for women’s political participation. The recent ascensions of several women to key positions historically occupied by men, such as former Nigerian Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Prime Minister Luisa Dias Diogo of Mozambique and Africa’s first female elected President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, are powerful sources of inspiration and confirm that women’s political leadership at the highest level is possible in the region. Elections in Nigeria and Sierra Leone this year offer a critical opportunity to work with newly elected women.
In Nigeria and Sierra Leone, female representation is significantly below regional and world averages. The project aims to promote legal frameworks for enhancing women’s political rights, including, for example establishing gender quotas.

Three missions are being organized to each target country, where Club of Madrid Members, former heads of state and government, and experts will share leadership experiences related to increasing women’s access to decision making in the social, economic and political spheres with African political decision-making leaders. Club of Madrid Members, who possess extensive practical experience navigating the challenges of political leadership, and are a valuable source of strategic advice, will provide leadership for consultations with and dialogue among decision-makers and civil society in the three target countries. Activities will be structured around three thematic pillars: political leadership capacity building/sharing of experiences; building of sustainable networks; and political advocacy for an increased participation of women in politics.

The project seeks to reach more that 300 political leaders from parliament, government decision-making bodies, candidates, political parties, and gender sensitive political civil society leaders in three countries as well as the general public and in particular young women. This project is part of the Club of Madrid’s global effort on Dialogue, Identity and Democracy.