Workshop on Gender and Elections, Sylhet, Bangladesh 11-12 December 2018

The Bangladesh Election Commission Secretariat (ECS), in partnership with UN Women and UNDP organized its fifth and BRIDGE workshop on Gender and Elections under the framework “Support to the Bangladesh Parliamentary Elections 2018-2019 (SBPE)” on 11-12 December 2018 at the Hotel Valley Garden in Sylhet.

The workshop was attended by 32 participants including 9 women, which had the highest women’s representation of all BRIDGE workshops conducted under this initiative. 13 participants represented the ECS Regional and District Offices of Sylhet, and 18 represented the media, CSOs promoting women’s rights, election observation organizations and universities.

Mr. Saiful Chowdhury, Deputy Chief of the ECS who attended the workshop as resource person, intervened on several sessions. In particular, he highlighted the importance of all stakeholders to work together to advocate around political parties to strengthen women’s participation in party leadership and in achieving 33% representation of women in party committees by 2020 in accordance with the RPO (The Representation of the People Order) amended in 2009.

Comments received from the participants:

• “Women’s participation in Elections is very important as they represent 50% of our population. So I need to vote for honest leadership who can contribute for the betterment of especially women”. – Female participant
• “The BRIDGE workshop helped us including ECS officials, journalists, civil society leaders, teachers and students to be a team to work to ensure a peaceful election environment in our area”. – CSO leader participant

The workshop was conducted by the following BRIDGE facilitators:

• Saif Uddin Ahmed, Consultant, UN Women Bangladesh
• SM Asaduzzaman, Joint Secretary, Election Commission Secretariat, Bangladesh
• Farhad Ahmed, Democracy International, Bangladesh