Lesotho & South Africa In World Forum's Top 10 Best Gender Parity Report

Celebration News from the World Economic Forum:

The World Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2009 is released, with the wonderful news that S. Africa and Lesotho are in the Top 10 countries in the world on gender equality resources allocation.

With funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), NDI works with political parties in Botswana and Lesotho to identify obstacles and opportunities to increase women’s political participation. via Flickr’s briebruninThe report’s Index assesses countries on how well they are dividing their resources and opportunities among their male and female populations, regardless of the overall levels of these resources and opportunities. South Africa and Lesotho made great strides in closing their gender gaps to enter the top 10, at sixth and 10th position respectively. The Philippines (9) lost ground for the first time in four years but remains the leading Asian country in the rankings.

The top 10 countries are:

Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, N. Zealand, S. Africa, Denmark, Ireland, Philippines, Lesotho

Bravo to South Africa and Lesotho!

The United States ranked a pathetic 31, largely due to our score of 61 in political equality. Unlike many countries in the world, America (who hates quota systems) has no strategy for increasing women’s participation in government.

No matter what you hear, American women are not well represented in government. That’s our fault as women and also reflects patriarchal attitudes in my own country. Anne