(English) Nov 2022 IFES discussion; the Ambition Gap? Barriers to the Participation of Women in Pol.

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and thank you for joining the International Foundation for electoral systems or ifis in this discussion series on Democratic resilience in Europe life is then it's a non-profit non-governmental organization that supports electoral processes very broadly defined across the world and we have assisted elections in European countries since the fall of the iron Curt

this is the 23rd installment in our Series so far we've covered issues from election Administration to inclusion cyber security disinformation targeting women in politics abuse of State resources and the role of the Russian government in European elections and democracy if you've missed our previous discussions you can find recordings on them on our YouTube channel my colleague

is putting a link to that in the chat right now hi Mike Miss Herman I'm the office senior political Finance advisor and I'm also director of the ifas Europe democracy Exchange in Prague which is hosting this discussion and this event is part of a larger usage-funded program of democracy assistance but the goal of supporting

leadership that Champions democratic practices and is made possible for the general support from the American people So today we're talking about the challenges faced by women in seeking to get engaged in electoral politics in European countries there's only 31 of women in European parliaments and with a share of women in parliaments in central eastern Europe

being below that of sub-Saharan Africa there is a long way to go yet before European parliaments benefits from gender equality and the situation is then even worse in many countries in local government bodies so this online discussion will engage women politicians and experts on how they perceive the obstacles that exist to the political participate