Project Name: “Delivering on Gender Equality in Elections”
Budget: 20769,43 USD
Donors: East-European Foundation and SOROS Moldova
Problem Statement:
In 2006, the Parliament adopted the law on equal opportunities between women and men, the law contains rules to promote / provide equal opportunities in the electoral process, as well. Thus, the law requires that the major electoral actors (political parties, media institutions, electoral institutions) to ensure the principle of equal opportunities for women and men in the electoral process. The monitoring processed developed by CPD within local elections in 2007 and the parliamentary elections in 2009 from the gender perspective, showed that the law mentioned above did not contribute significantly to the insurance of equal opportunities in the electoral process and the candidates have largely ignored the provisions of law . For example, after three years of the draft law, the percentage of women candidates in parliamentary elections in 2009 was less than one in 2005 (28.5% and 29%).
Beneficiaries: Training and information activities (seminars, trainings, workshops, competitions, etc..) were attended by 2000 participants, of whom 1372 women and 628 men. Street activities, information campaigns "from door to door" and other local mobilization actions involved about 9,200 people.
Goal and Objectives:
The project aims to contribute to the fulfillment and promotion of equal opportunities in the parliamentary elections of 2009 and 2010.
Objective 1. Determine the political parties and media outlets that will be engaged in promoting active principles of equal opportunities and gender equality in the electoral process.
Objective 2. Developing the internal capacities of political parties to include gender in electoral bids and actively promoting equal opportunities in the election process (conducted in 2009 with the support of FSM in 2010 with support FEE).
Objective 3. Increasing awareness of citizens entitled to vote on the importance of gender issues in the election process (platform and promote gender-sensitive women on electoral lists of political parties). (Supported by FSM in 2009 and 2010 with support FEE)
Objective 4. To monitor and evaluate the elections from 2009 and 2010, in terms of gender.
Results:
Cumulatively, 77% of the planned goal and objectives of the project have been achieved. Objective (1) was achieved in 60%. Objective (2) was achieved in 80%, objective (3) was achieved in 70% and objective (4) was achieved in 100%, and the project generally has a success rate of 70%.
Project’s activities have contributed to greater visibility of gender as intrinsic principle of a free and fair electoral process. Although we cannot support that project’s activities have caused electoral actors to significantly attribute more importance to the principle of equal opportunities, but we consider that they get more sensitive to this issue. This was demonstrated by the fact that several parties in the electoral platform included women or specific provisions made reference to the principle of equal opportunities. In 2010, PLDM proposed as legislative initiative to introduce a quota representation on candidates’ lists. CEC included (at the insistence CPD) gender equality, as a principle to be respected when adopted the guide concerning the elections.