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Topic Discussion III
Participation in
Democratic Decision-Making:
The Vital Voices of Women, Civil Society and
Pluralism
Room 3
(6 of 16 pages)
Chair: Thank you very much. Now I open the floor for comments or observations,
but please make sure that you limit it to no more than two minutes.
Radmila Sekerinska: My name is Radmila Sekerinska. I am a member of the Macedonian parliament, as a representative
of the Social Democratic Party of Macedonia. I must say that the issues that will arise and probably will be discussed
here are not issues that are a problem only to emerging democracies. They are still issues that are discussed in
so-called old democracies which have managed to come to a certain level which for the time being is not perhaps
satisfactory but still means that there is a future prospect and future development. Nevertheless, it's obvious
that the creation of non-governmental grass roots local national organization has emerged from the need and the
interests of various groups of citizens to strengthen their voices by joining all of them on one platform, in one
place, on joint interests and ideas.
Our case, at least the experiences in my country, Macedonia, say that encouraging and supporting the NGOs by means
of financing, by means of logistics, helps both the citizens as well as the government during the process of transition,
because in a way it eases the tensions and the hardships that are due to happen. We have experienced various forms
that are mentioned here in the text, like the ombudsman office, the decentralization of power and public negotiating
forums. Also, we have encouraged sometimes non-formal, non-official meetings and gatherings with decision-makers
and interest groups. We have also encouraged and in a way structured a certain participation of experts and representatives
of interest groups in various committees dealing with issues that were considered sensitive, that were considered
very interesting for the general public.
One of the examples that I want to give here concerns the health reforms that we have started in co-operation with
the World Bank. One of the issues that the government had problems with while discussing this with the World Bank
was the proposal of changes in maternity leave. The proposal and the pressure for this proposal by the World Bank
was in the direction of really limiting the period for maternity leave three times less than it used to be. We
have witnessed an enormous pressure by NGOs, by women's groups, by groups dealing with the family and care of children,
and this pressure was both on the government and on the World Bank representatives and I must say that for the
first time on an issue such as this, this pressure has worked and the World Bank and the government has withdrawn
this proposal. So in a way this helped both the citizens and the interest groups, as well as the government that
did have problems in doing it.
But I must say that this forum and this group will need to address an issue that is wide and interesting as a separate
issue and that is the participation of women in decision-making. We have different cases; different countries,
different traditions. Nevertheless, we all face more or less the same problems. The participation of women as a
problem has to be dealt with on several platforms. The first one will be to ensure a fair legal framework. The
second would be to encourage legislation reforms in areas that are identified as a certain limiting factor for
higher participation of women. Families, social security, labor, health, education and so on. The second thing,
which is very important for the participation of women in politics and political parties, is the election model.
There is a huge discussion whether the proportional model should be encouraged in order to promote more women in
parliament and other representative bodies.
The next thing would be, we have witnessed and had the experience of coordinating bodies of women in parliamentary
groups, in political parties that have worked together jointly for a certain idea or proposal. One of the very
important things which is very difficult to work on is creating role models. Role models can be created through
participation of women in the political parliament and in the political parties, but sometimes it's not enough
because the political participation is still very low to create this. Therefore, we have encouraged the government
to at least try to balance this by appointing more women in areas where they do not go through election process
but can be appointed by the Prime Minister or by the parliament. Of course there are various other instruments
that should be used, but at the end, in closing, I think that women must participate in the decision-making, not
only for the sake of their situation, not only for solving their problems which are enormous and need to be solved,
but also for the sake of the decision-making process itself. Until this is understood, until this is accepted really
by men and women in the political structures, by men and women in decision-making bodies, we will be called 'emerging
democracies' without much or any chance to erase this first part of the term in the near future.
Thank you.
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