Urgent and decisive action should be taken to ensure women are genuinely able to enjoy equal opportunities to participate in the electoral process. The Yemeni authorities, political parties, civil society, religious leaders and others of influence should make a genuine and public commitment to develop and implement a strategic programme that will promote and improve the role of women in every aspect of elections. The programme should include:
i. A full consultative review of the current and alternative electoral systems for parliamentary and local council elections to identify mechanisms for increasing the representation of women as active politicians in elected office that are appropriate to the Yemeni context, and to implement the recommendations of that review;
ii. Steps by all major political parties to ensure significantly more women are nominated as candidates to include:
a. establishing targets for the nomination of more representative numbers of women candidates;
b. the possibility for the coordinated nomination of all-women candidates for constituencies;
c. provision of financial resources, campaign assistance and public endorsements for women candidates from political leadership, with matching steps from the SCER and Yemeni authorities to support independent women candidates and to protect women candidates from harassment and undue pressure;
d. greater participation by women in official positions with decision-making responsibility within political parties and the development of political role models for women;
e. political parties to appoint women as members of election commissions.
iii. A strategic nationwide programme of civic and voter education by the SCER and media that is specifically targeted at empowering the role of women in the electoral process and to raise awareness of their rights as voters and candidates, matched with similar programmes to ensure male voters are made aware of the rights of women voters;
iv. A targeted drive to increase and equalise the number of women registered as voters;
v. The appointment of more women as members of election commissions at all levels and the provision of more effective and inclusive training of female polling staff, combined with guidelines to ensure improved conditions for female polling stations as well as a genuine inclusion and empowerment of the SCER Women’s Unit in order to address gender issues strategically and effectively.