Justice and Women in Algeria: From Parity to the Promotion of Leadership (CSW70 Side Event)

Hello. Please be seated. We're about to start our event. Good afternoon to all of the participants, to our guests in this rather snowy and rainy and cold afternoon in Algeria. We said that bringing rain, it's bringing baraka.

So we believe that maybe this event has sort of brought some baraka to. To the weather. And hopefully this discussion will help warm your brains up, hopefully within this cold. So I would like to make some few logistical announcements before we begin our work. First of all, translation is available in three languages, so feel free to choose the languages you are most comfortable in.

You can just choose English, English, Arabic or French. This event is also being webcasted. You can scan the QR code that you can see displayed on the screen so that you will be able to follow the event through UnoTV. Finally, there is the documentation related to this event who's being available and placed on the desk on the side front of the room. There's also Algerian dates if you want to enjoy.

That is being passed on to all of you. But there's also a box here. I do encourage you to taste some of these delights. So I am Ahlam Sara Sharikhi. I am a Director for Humanitarian, Social and Cultural affairs at the Ministry of Foreign affairs in Algeria and and I have the honor to be the moderator of this important event.

I do thank you for your presence, for your attendance to this event that is being organized by the government of Algeria and the United Nations Program for Development entitled Women and Justice in Algeria From Parity to the Promotion of Leadership on the margin of the CSW 70th session. So we gather today to share and learn from the experience of Algeria in the fields of women in the judiciary system. In line with the thematic of the csw, but also in line with the spirit of the csw. This commission is all about sharing experience, learning from each other's perspectives, hearing from others. So we do believe that this is what CSW has always taught us and this is where it takes its relevance.

That's why we're very keen to hold a side event that would really allow us to share an experience that we hope will be beneficial to all of you.

So today we'll hear about the success story in the field of women and justice achieved through a partnership between the Ministry of Justice in Algeria and the representation of UNDP in Algeria aimed at promoting the career development of women judges. So this partnership actually was launched as a result of a study, a study that has been conducted by UNDP and UN women in Africa. The study aimed at making a comparative examination in 14 countries about women judges. So the findings of this study were actually used and were the beginning of that story that we are about to to tell you. So thank you to UNDP for the, for giving birth to this partnership.

And then building on the experience of Algeria, we will broaden our discussion and go beyond Algeria to the African region where we'll hear from the office of this from the Office of the Special Advisor to the Secretary General on Africa. We'll also hear from the Secretary General of the Conference of African Constitutional Jurisdiction and we have also with us experts from Pittsburgh's University, and they will all share with us the importance of access to justice for women in order to achieve gender equality and promote human rights in Africa. So in this regard, I would like to welcome and thank all our distinguished panelists. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your interest.

Thank you for the for your dedication. So it is indeed my honor to introduce this panel which I must highlight, respect the gender parity. This is always worth mentioning. And also we'll have the honor to have a various and cross regional panel that is also very important and very beneficial to all of us. So without further ado, I will give the floor to our first panelist, if I may say so.

So he is the Deputy Permanent Representative of Algeria to the United nations in New York, Mr. Tufik Kwidri. So Mr. Koudery has a long career, long diplomatic career. He has been appointed as Deputy permanent representative in 2025, but he has before served in various posting diplomatic postings in Africa, Pretoria, in Asia, Kuala Lumpur. He also holds a PhD in international law. And he will share with us the introductory remark on behalf of the government of Algeria.

Thank you, Mr. Kudry.

Thank you, Madam Moderator. Dear colleague Helen, thank you for giving us this chance, this honor to introduce the theme of our side event. And first of all, I would like to send the regards and greetings of Ambassador Amar Benjamin, who for unforeseen reason couldn't make it with us today. So I have the pleasure to represent him today in this meeting.

Don't expect me to make a long statement. I'm here with keenness to listen to our brilliant panelists from the academia, from the UN system, from the Ministry of Justice of Algeria and from all walk of life. My remarks will be limited to some introductory observations on the work and the will of the government of Algeria, the public authorities to enhance and promote the empowerment of women in all sectors of activities, especially in the justice system. So we hope that this discussion today will allow us to reflect on the importance of women access to justice system, not only as beneficiaries of justice, but also as key actors within judicial institutions.

As you may know, Algerian women are today present in all sectors of society, including the judiciary. Their growing presence in this field contribute to strengthen the values of justice, equality and the rule of law. Through years of dedication and hard work, Algerian women have proven their ability to assume responsibility at all levels of the judicial system. The highest of which is the Constitutional Court has currently a woman at its helm. Also by the numbers, the participation of women in the judiciary reflects competence, professionalism and strong commitment to justice.

Today, women represent around 49% of the judiciary in Algeria. It's quasi perfect parity and this progress is also visible in the higher school of judiciary. And finally, building partnership for us is a key factor. The cooperation project between the Ministry of Justice and UNDP aims to further support the professional development of women judges and strengthen gender equality within the judicial system. Without any further ado, I give back the floor and I'm very keen to listen to our panelists.

Again, thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Kudvi, dear colleague and brother, for your insights. Indeed, you shared with us the progress made by the Algerian government within the fields of women in the judiciary. You have rightly pointed out that in 2025 we have a woman leading the highest judiciary institution in Algeria, that is the Constitutional Court. It is really an achievement that we should be all proud of.

And now I will give the floor to our distinguished guests, His Excellency, Mr. Abdullah Al Daldari, who is UN Assistant Secretary General and the Director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States, that I really thank him for being able to attend this event. As you, I believe, as you know, he's a well known personality within undp, so we all know him. But to share with you some of his achievements. Of course, I have always been amazed that you have started a very long career, starting from newspaper, then holding a Deputy Prime Minister in Economic affairs in Syria, then do all this amazing professional career within the un, up to leading the UNDP Bureau for Arab States. So I think it's very inspirational and I believe you would be very keen to share with our panel with our attendance some of your insights on this theme.

Excellency of the floor, please.

Thank you very much for this introduction. It's a very nice way of saying you are an old man, you've been young for long enough.

Dear colleagues, it's not a secret that we are here to celebrate the achievements of Algeria in The field of female participation and active leadership in the judiciary. Not just that, in the whole concept of women participation, equity, empowerment. Algeria has made so many strides and we in undp, in the Bureau of Arab States in undp, we are very proud of that. And we are very proud that we are partners with Algeria in this journey, albeit sometimes in a very modest contribution and sometimes not much modest, but we are with Algeria in this. Very exciting things happening there.

When we hear that more than 49% of judges in Algeria are female and that Algeria is the first country to adopt gender seal in public institutions, it's something really to be highlighted and be proud of. I have a written speech, but allow me to say a few words outside the. Outside the written speech. And I will speak as an economist because that's my profession. And I would like to highlight that access to justice for women is an entry point, is the key entry point for economic empowerment of women in the Arab region.

The participation, Arab women participation in the economy is very low. It's almost 20% female participation. And this is very paradoxical because productivity, labor productivity of women in the Arab world is higher than male productivity. Meaning if we bring more women into the labor force and into economic activities, productivity or total factor productivity in the Arab economies will be boosted dramatically. In fact, if we manage to bring economic participation of women in our region to the global average, Arab GDP could gain 20%.

Imagine how much investment we will need to increase GDP by 20%. We need billions and billions. Here is a low cost, high impact investment. Bring women access to justice, bring women access to finance and give them their legal rights that are enshrined in Arab Islamic culture and civilization. Bring them those rights to allow them to boost our economies.

That is a very important point. Why am I saying this to you tonight? Because we need to go to the ministers of finance and tell them the best investment you can make is to invest in empowering women in the judiciary and providing women with access to finance. Because usually it is that dialogue that never ends between people like us seeking support for women and the ministries of finance whose job is to protect the coffers of the state. Let's bring a very strong argument highlighting and demonstrating that without access to justice, there is no economic participation and without economic participation for women, there is no recovery in our economies and there is no competitiveness, no diversification and no productivity.

And that's why I want to go back to UNDP's modest contribution to this very important topic in Algeria and the rest of the region and in Africa, to Say that we believe this is the future. And I, as an economist, believe this is the best and most effective way for gaining real, inclusive, participatory, representative economic growth in our economies. Let me stop at that. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Excellency, for this, for these insights. I think one of the most powerful elements that you have made is that really by bringing women access to justice and by ensuring and improving their economic rights would really increase GDP by 20%. I think this is. It has really resonates in my mind and I hope it would resonate in the minds of all of the people that are here.

I think it's very inspirational and it gives a key to a wide range of problems. So thank you very much, Excellency. And I do believe that the government of Algeria and UNDP has indeed an exceptional partnership. So thank you for all your efforts and thank you for being with us. We'll now move to the representative of the Ministry of Justice in Algeria, which is, who is, sorry, the responsibility responsible for the program that has all brought us into this room.

Mrs. Aisu Asma. She is a magistrate. She has been appointed in 2025amagistrate at the Supreme Court. She has over 20 years of experience in the judiciary system in Algeria, dealing with criminal matters, extraditions, legal assistance. So she has been now appointed at a senior position at the cabinet of the Minister of Justice where she is otherwise in charge of this amazing partnership.

So I will give her the floor that she will guide us all through this wonderful journey that has started with UNDP and that has brought us all together today. Please, Ms. Ashley, have the floor.

Welcome everyone. The topic today is the project supporting the professional track of women judges in Algeria. We will present it as follows, an introduction, then a presentation on the project, followed by a closing as a way of introduction. Let's start by the representation of women judges that we have touched upon. It represents more than 49% of the total number of judges in Algeria.

This is a very promising indicator, especially when we remind of the frame that benefited Algeria. In this vein, it was possible thanks to the African study undertaken by the UNDP back in 2021. 2022, 24 African states have participated in the study, including Algeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, among others. This study showed that there is a positive representation of women judges which led the UNDP to suggest our country as a candidate to benefit from this project. It underwent two phases that we will touch upon now.

First, we introduce this project which was in coordination between the Ministry of Justice and the UNDP in its first phase. It extended from 2023 till 2024.

We signed this project in its first version back in 2023 and it continued for an entire year till the end of 2024. US$200,000 have been allocated to implement the project. It included the training of 239 women judges. It also provided 11 training programs in different areas, including developing leadership skills, developing the skills of managing human resources, developing internal communication skills, developing communication skills with the media. Such training workshops were undertaken by experts from Algeria and from abroad.

Then a comparative study was undertaken to represent women judges in Algeria and their counterparts elsewhere. The expert has held different interviews with judges from different entities. They've also interviewed the Higher School of Legal Studies with the help of local laws. It concluded that Algeria represent a very promising percentage compared to other countries of women judges. As to the high level jobs, it is similar to so many other international positions elsewhere.

The second phase was a preparatory stage to have a more expanded project. After the tangible success achieved by this project in its first version, the corporation was renewed with the UNDP to start a new phase which is the current phase. During this phase, we will define the project, its objectives and the programmatic activities to implement it. First, let's define the project.

This is a cooperation project between the Government of Algeria and the UNDP in line with the strategic cooperation agreement signed between the two parties. It was signed on 7 April 2025 in the Ministry of Justice. Around US$2 million have been allocated to implement this project which will run over four years from 2025 till 2029. The partners are the Ministry of Justice, the UNDP as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The beneficiaries are the practitioning women judges as well as the students of law.

Turning to the objectives of this project, we have defined three main objectives from this project. The first is to promote the support of structural developments and encouraging them to contribute in promoting the professional track of women judges. The second objective is to establish a program that will build the capacities of women judges. The third is promoting international cooperation to promote the role of women judges. To achieve this end, a number of programmatic activities have been conducted in line with the project frame dedicated for each year.

First, the programmatic activities to achieve the first objective.

This is represented in two different activities. The first is candidacy to obtain the gender equality seal.

This is a certificate provided by the UNDP to the public institutions and authorities so that the latter can be encouraged to make further efforts in the field of women rights. This Project empowers the Ministry of Justice in Algeria to obtain the certificate. It will be a model to be followed by other public institutions. It will also promote the stance of of Algeria internationally as a country committed to support women's rights. Among the examples of the countries who have received this certificate is Argentina, Chile, Panama, Peru, the Dominican Republic as well as Bosnia.

Turning to the second activity, it's organizing awareness raising campaigns, especially the personal commitment to participate in these activities while taking into consideration the requirements of women judges so that we can break the stigma surrounding this domain. The second type of activities programmed to achieve this project is distributed in three different activities. The first is to.

Train a number of women who can assume leadership, especially those who have such skills and can convey expertise, so that we ensure the sustainability of such skills and ensure a constant accompaniment to women judges even after the end of the project cycle. The second activity is to launch the mentoring program.

This mentoring program responds to the need to ensure the accompaniment of young women judges in the beginning of their career by those who have full expertise, those who can provide support and advice. This would ensure greater self confidence in women judges who are still at the beginning of their career. They will also be provided with the necessary tools to develop their abilities to assume leadership. The third activity is to organize training programs for all those practitioners in this field and especially women judges. They will train on how to publicly represent Algeria in different national international domains, how do they use modern technology, how to undertake presentations and as such as to the programmatic activities aimed at achieving the third objective of developing international cooperation to promote the role of women judges.

It is represented in two different activities. The first is exchange of expertise and best practices at the international level. In this activity they will be introduced to the best practices of countries not to implement them as is, but to conclude the lessons learned and make sure that it is competent with the specificities of the Algerian community and the judicial system in Algeria. We also exchange expertise through the participation in international fora that are organized by the iawg, the Human Rights Council and in this domain we can touch upon the chance that was available when we participated in Geneva in June of 2025 in a side event on this project. This came on the sidelines of the 59th session of the Human Rights Council during which we presented the Algerian experience in this project.

This initiative was commended by all countries represented. Turning to the csw, we would like to express our sincere content that Algeria has been invited to share its experience with you. As to the second activity is the South Cooperation and its encouragement. We promote Our cooperation with the developing countries interested in this subject. We organize different workshops and seminars in Algeria and other countries where we exchange expertise and best practices of these countries.

In addition to the Algerian experience, this contributes in developing regional solidarity. Before concluding our presentation, would like to present some examples of women judges, the very first women judges in Algeria. I wanted to take you back to history to present those ideas of two women who were among the first women judges in Algeria. The first is Hamadi Nadia and Murabat Malika. Both represent an example and a proof that women Algerian women judges are not new.

Instead, it goes back to the 60s of the previous century, right after the independence of Algeria in 1962. Mrs. Hamadi Nadia joined the judicial system in 1964. She has assumed different posts. She started as a judge in the court in 1964, then a counselor in the Judicial Council, then in the Ministry of Justice, then in the Supreme Court. And in the year 2000 she ended her career as to Mrs. Murabat Malika.

She joined the Judiciary in 1967, started as a judge in a court in 1967, then in the Ministry of Justice, the Supreme Court and the State Council and ended her career in 2006.

We would like also to mention some of the classes that have been graduating and the class was named after one of the female judges.

And this came to prove their continuous career perseverance in this domain. A stamp was issued to ensure a commemoration of the International Day of Yumn judges on the 10th of Mars. This stamp shows a woman judge wearing her robe while pinpointing to the justice to promote her rights and ensure parity between women and men. We have distributed different slogans that represent this stamp that was issued on that occasion. To conclude, we could say that Algeria attaches great importance to the status of women.

The judiciary had special interest and attention since it is a main pillar for the state. The statistics of the Higher School of Justice shows that there is a constant in increase in the number of women studying the judiciary to become women judges. They are almost half the total number of judges in the coming few years. Thank you for your attention and it will be my pleasure to answer any questions or listen to any suggestions or comments after the interventions of our colleagues. Peace be upon you.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Ms. Aisoo. Indeed, it was an insightful presentation. The fact that you have also brought to our memories that the first woman in the judiciary system in Algeria date from the independence of our country in 1964. That is, I believe it speaks on itself to the importance of this issue and its historical development throughout the years.

So without further ado, I would now give the floor to our next panelist, Ms. Natasha Van Rinsch. She is the UNDP representative in Algeria. She's been appointed in 2024. She has been serving the UN system for over 20 years. So we have quite knowledgeable person in these panels.

Minimum required 20 years in the field. So she has before served in several, in several stations. This is how you call it? Stations, yes, duty stations. Sorry.

So in Madagascar, in Central African Republic, in emn, all very interesting duty stations. So I will give the floor to Ms. Natasha Venringe, who I believe will show us and showcase the partnership between Algeria and the undp. Please, you have the floor.

Thank you. Thank you very much for this introduction and it's an honour to be here this afternoon in the context of the 70th session of the Commission on this Status of Women to present the Gender Equality Seal for public institutions and more specifically its concrete application by the Algerian Ministry of Justice, who you've just heard from, in partnership with undp.

So the presentation that I'm going to make is rather a short one, but it will provide an overview first of all of UNDP's general seal for public institutions, its purpose, its goals, its core components. Give a brief overview of the partnership between UNDP in Algeria and the Ministry of Justice, and finally share some information on the application of the Gender Seal for public institutions within the Ministry of Justice.

So allow me to begin with a very sobering reflection which is we are operating in a global context of declining trust in public institutions. This is a challenge, yes, but it also offers an opportunity. We know that democracies thrive when institutions deliver public services effectively and equitably. Integrating a gender perspective is not only a matter of rights, but it also directly strengthens, strengthens institutional performance, the quality of services and public confidence in institutions.

UNDP around the world works with governments to build strong and people centered public institutions that place gender equality and citizens needs at the heart of policies, programs and services. The Gender Equality Seal, which you'll learn a bit more about if you you haven't already heard about it in this last few days, is a flagship initiative that helps us to achieve this ambition. It provides a structured, evidence based approach for public institutions to strengthen performance, enhance transparency and deliver services that respond equitably to the needs of all citizens.

The Gender Equality Seal offers a comprehensive set set of gender equality standards. It's a package of tailored services and tools and an internationally recognized global certification it guides institutions through a concrete roadmap from planning and implementation to monitoring and evaluation. Guiding public institutions to embed gender equality across every aspect of their work.

The SEALs methodology is organized around five dimensions. It should appear on a slide shortly. Slide number six, if I may ask. That together form a comprehensive framework for integrating gender equality across institutional policies, systems and services. The public institutions are assessed and supported to improve in the five following dimensions.

Firstly, institutional planning and management for gender equality, participation, partnerships and accountability, enabling work environment inside of these institutions, institutional architecture and capacities for advancing gender equality and finally, results and impact at public policy level. Together, these dimensions drive institutional transformation and strengthen gender responsive public policies and services. They're further operationalised through 20 standards and 40 benchmarks covering areas such as gender responsive budgeting, leadership commitment, dedicated gender expertise, fair and respectful treatment of all citizens, prevention of harassment and discrimination and finally engagement with civil society society an all important aspect. This ensures that reforms that are made are both comprehensive and actionable. So within each dimension, the methodology assesses the concrete institutional requirements and these are the benchmarks and indicators that guide institutional transformation such as dedicated in house, gender expertise, senior leadership commitment, work life balance mechanisms and zero tolerance for sexual harassment, gender based violence and discrimination.

Also equal opportunities in decision making and professional development and finally, gender responsive communication.

So the seal is implemented through a 24 month cycle slide 6.

Its institutions begin with a senior level engagement and the establishment of what we call a gender steering mechanism or otherwise known as a working team followed by a self assessment undertaken by that committee. UNDP then supports the institution in developing an improvement plan providing capacity development and technical advice. So throughout the cycle, institutions benefit from global knowledge platforms and peer to peer exchange, including with others who are undergoing the gender seal process. So the process concludes with three levels of certification. An external assessment is undertaken at the end of 24 months and it results in a certification of bronze, silver or gold depending on the level of compliance achieved within the institution.

Within all of this process, UNDP engages with its partners, in this case the Ministry of Justice to provide a local gender advisory capacity through the and support the establishment of the Gender Steering Committee to conduct or select help conduct the baseline self assessment process to support the development of an action plan and to deploy expertise for the external evaluation that will eventually lead to the Gender Seal certification which is valid for three years. So the seals reach today is across 31 countries and 112 public institutions across four regions and in seven major sectors including taxation, health, finance and of course justice. To date, more than 40 institutions have completed the full program cycle and received their certification. This progress reflects the growing recognition amongst governments that gender responsive institutions deliver higher quality policies and services.

THE RESULTS this slide visually represents the key results and achievement of the gender equality seal. Comparing baseline assessment results that you can see in orange to the final results that you can see in blue. It illustrates the institutional transformation, improvements in gender responsive policies, systems and practices, enhanced partnerships and service delivery, better outcomes for citizens, especially women and marginalized groups. Overall, it leads to a strengthened working environment and evidence for a stronger gender equality mechanism in these institutions. Passing quickly to the Algerian context, as you've already heard today, the government promotes women's professional empowerment through constitutional reforms that guarantee equality, eliminate discrimination and protect their rights, including access to education, employment and political participation.

As you've already heard, Algerian women have the highest level of representation with the government since independence and as you can see from this slide, the total number of female judges we've already mentioned it is equal to 49.22% of the total. In this context, UNDP is working with the Ministry to highlight the progress made within the sector and further encourage the leadership of women judges in the judicial system. Going to the project and the area that we are working on together, the collaboration builds on the solid foundation that's already in place. That takes the form of a multi year project supported by the governments of the Netherlands and of Japan more recently that aims to strengthen support for the career trajectories of women judges and ensure further representation in an already high representation sector.

Some of the results the project has supported is an increased capacity of female judges in Algeria through targeted training in judicial communication as well as leadership and human resources management. I will finally and very quickly tell you that with regard to the application to the gender seal then in the Ministry, the first phase has involved the mobilization of Madame Aisha Zinay, an expert whose interventions have focused on establishing trust and supporting the establishment of the first step, which is the Gender Committee. She has held meetings with the committee in its very preliminary form and it is already established and a decision has been taken that in the Ministry the focus will be on the central administration and the judicial courts for the gender seal. Very finally, the next steps for this process are the formalisation of the establishment of the gender Seal Committee, administrative anchoring of that committee within the Ministry, visibility to all of the stakeholders and counterparts on what the next steps will look like, and coordinating meetings and trainings around the process itself, and then preparing the self assessment, which as you saw, will create the baseline for the gender seal process in Algeria. On That I will.

Thank you all very much for your attention. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Natasha, for your. For your presentation.

I believe we'll all have the time to discuss about the findings that you have presented in your draft. So our next panelist would be Mr. Musa, who is a judge member of the Constitutional Court in Algeria. But he's here in his capacity of the Secretary General of the Conference of the African Countries Constitutional jurisdictions.

This institution, the headquarter of this institution is in Algeria. So we have the chance that he could make the travel with us and he will tell us about the work of this conference and how it did help women Dutches in Africa. Please, Mr. Musa, the floor. Shakran Silava. Thank you so much.

We speak in Arabic. Okay,

Thank you. Well, first of all, I'd like to thank you for inviting me to participate in this meeting.

To talk to you about the organization that I represent Headquarters in Algiers. It was founded in 2011. The approach adopted in Algeria is based on two pillars, namely economic support for African countries and support for those countries in the areas of governance, democratization and also in some other areas.

This Conference of Constitutional Jurisdictions is one of the largest organizations in fact in Africa and has more than 50 members represented in this with their supreme courts and constitutional courts and also some non African members that come from the Americas and also Asia. This organization carries out a number of activities. The last of these, most recent of these was work on women judges in Africa. Because of problems that women judges Africa face.

There are many problems in this area on the African content because of the specific nature of this continent. And that's why we looked into the possibility of organizing activities for women judges Africa. And that gave rise to the first meeting of African women's judges that was held in Libreville.

And the number of participants exceeded our expectations. In fact, representatives came from the four corners of Africa. And these activities were organized in cooperation with UNDP and with the support of the Algerian government. This activity made it possible for us to evaluate, assess the current situation for women judges in Africa. And what we saw was that women judges are facing a number of problems.

And that's why we would like to help them find adequate solutions to these problems.

And I asked two questions of all the supreme Courts and constitutional courts in Africa in order to get from them the latest African students statistics.

And according to those statistics, the number of presidents of either the Supreme Courts or constitutional courts is 15 women presidents. And that's a significant number compared to the number that existed before the first conference was held. In Libreville. And we also saw that the vice presidents, And this is very often, this is a common practice in Africa that you have a president and a vice president of courts. And the number of the vice president, women judges also significantly increased.

Currently, across Africa, there are 20 female vice presidents of supreme courts and constitutional courts in Africa. And when it comes to Africa as a whole, there are two women justice ministers only for the whole of Africa. And that, I think shows you.

The judicial position that women occupy in Africa. These two women are from Senegal and Tunisia. Unfortunately, given the lack of time, I won't be able to go into further statistics. But it is our aim to have a second meeting in Johannesburg next month. In April, invitations will be sent out to representatives of civil society so that they can also participate.

And also this year, we're going to be launching the Women's Pioneer project in this area. Thank you. Next, High level panelist, Mr. Jean Paul Adam, who is the Director for policy monitoring and Advocacy in the Office of the Special Advisor on Africa and the United Nations. So you've joined the United system in 2020, but you have served before in your home country, Seychelles, where you have been Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Trade. So you do have all the knowledge that would be beneficial to us.

Please, Mr. Adam, you have the floor.

Thank you. Merci beaucoup, excellence. Thank you very much. Dear participants, it's a pleasure to be with you for this very important meeting.

Allow me to begin by conveying the apologies of USG Cristina Duarte, who was unable to be with us today.

I think what we're dealing with, inclusive governance and the full realization of human rights is essential. From an economic point of view, access to justice is something that women and girls must be able to claim so that they can claim their economic rights. Succession rights, for example property rights, land tenure, security, are often the gateway to accessing, financing, investment in productive activities and participation in national development. From a social perspective perspective, Africa has reached a. Reached a historic milestone last year with the adoption of the African Union Convention on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls.

This major instrument reflects political commitment at the very highest level. And in both of these contexts, countries very often lack implementation. The gap between progressive legal frameworks and the domestic daily reality of those that those frameworks are supposed to protect. The most important thing is action, and we'd like to thank Algeria for showing us very clearly examples of action in the African context. It's important to recognize that obstacles to justice are multiple for those living in rural areas, young people, persons with disabilities.

Martin migrants or disabled persons or displaced persons. I'm sorry. And also those facing poverty. A justice strategy that takes these intersecting identities into account will make it possible to effectively target many of the structural obstacles that undermine equal access to justice. And it's particularly here that judicial representation and leadership play an essential role.

Jurisprudence that recognizes the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination as well as gender responsive institutions. They can harness the opportunities of the digital revolution to reduce the distance between the law and people's lived experience. Al Juira's experience here is particularly valuable. The country's efforts to strengthen women's participation in the judiciary and pro their professional advancement offer practical lessons for the region. I look forward to learning more about these initiatives and exploring how these good practices can be shared and adapted across the continent.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for your decisive and time limited insightful remarks. Excellency. Thank you very much.

I trust you. Thank you again. So we'll hear from our last panelist. Last but not least, we'll move to the academia's perspective. We have with us our two experts, Dr. Melanie Huge, who is a professor of sociology and co director of the Gender Inequality Research Lab at the University of Pittsburgh.

She's joined by miss Gloria Jasmine Acoba, who is the African regional team lead for the Gender Equality and Public Administration and Worker Group in Pittsburgh University. You do have the floor, please.

Thank you very much. And thank you to our Algerian and UNDP colleagues for organizing this important discussion. So as the final speakers today, we would like to offer an additional perspective. So thank you so much for the introduction. My name's Melanie Hughes from the University of Pittsburgh, and together with my colleague, Gloria Jasmine Acoba, we examined two simple questions.

Who leads justice ministries across Africa? And do we have the data to answer that question? Next slide, please. Now, much attention here today has focused on women judges, which are an incredibly important position within the justice sector. But here we're gonna pivot a little bit to look at public administration and specifically justice ministries.

So here we're interested in the positions that are underneath the justice minister working in the justice sector. Now, justice ministries shape the institutions that make justice possible. Justice ministries oversee legal reform, court administration, and policies affecting access to justice. And for this reason, who works in these institutions and also who leads them matters for the inclusiveness and legitimacy of justice systems. Next slide, please.

Now, the first challenge that we encountered is data availability. So let me briefly explain what this challenge chart shows. So each bar here represents the most recent publicly available data reported by a country on women working in justice ministries. So the purple bars show overall employees and the orange bars show decision making positions. Now, across all of Africa, 24 of 55 countries have no publicly available data on women working in justice ministries.

And even where just data do exist, they're often outdated. Only 10 countries have data from the last five years, and just five countries report information on leadership positions. So these gaps make it difficult to monitor progress towards gender equality in justice institutions.

Next slide, please. Now, where data exists, we can see clear patterns in women's representation across justice ministries. So let me briefly walk you through these two maps. Countries shaded in purple show different ranges of women's representation, all below parity, with darker shades representing closer to gender parity. And countries shaded in orange indicate cases where women hold more than half of positions where gender parity has been reached.

So, starting with the map on the left, this shows women's participation in justice ministries, so their share of total employees. Across these countries, women hold just over a third of positions on average. But representation varies quite widely, from 7% in Chad to 64% in Lesotho. Now turning to the map on the right, this shows women's share of decision making positions and justice ministries. Now, here again, women hold just over a third of leadership positions on average.

But again, we see substantial variation from about 11% in Togo to more than 50% in South Africa. Looking at both maps, we can also see that many West African countries appear among those with available data, while other parts of the continent still have larger information gaps. Together, these patterns highlight two things. One, diverse outcomes across countries, and two, the need for better data.

So, next slide, please. In our next level of analysis, we compared women's representation in decision making positions within justice ministries to decision making positions across government overall. So, according to the chart, the orange bars represent justice ministries, while the gray bars represent government overall ministries. The horizontal line marks parity at 50%. So, across the countries where data are available, women are better represented in justice ministry leadership in four out of the seven countries shown here.

So, for example, this is the case in South Africa, Capo Verde, Guinea Bissau and Sao Tome and Principe, where women hold a larger share of directors, permanent secretaries, senior administrators, and other high level decision making roles in justice ministries than they do across government ministries overall. In other words, justice ministries sometimes perform comparatively well at the leadership level relative to government overall ministries. However, as we see in the graphs, only two countries, South Africa and Capo Verde, have reached China. Gender parity in justice ministry leadership. So, while we see encouraging gains in some countries, women remain underrepresented in leadership positions across most justice ministries.

Next slide.

So, while women appear relatively rarely presented in leadership positions within justice ministries in some countries, this does not necessarily mean that justice gender equality has been achieved across the system. So the bars on the left show employees and the bars on the right show decision making positions. The purple bars represent justice ministries and the gray bars represent government overall. So when we compare these two groups, the data reveal an interesting pattern. Within justice ministries, women's share of employees and leadership positions is quite similar.

This is quite notable because in many organizations, the share of women typically declines as you move up the hierarchy. In other words, women are often less represented in leadership positions than in the broader workforce. We do not see a large drop between employees and decision making positions. This suggests that justice ministries may offer relatively stronger pathways to leadership for women than other parts of government.

So, so far, our presentation has highlighted both significant data gaps and persistent gender inequalities within justice ministries. So, based on these findings, we propose three main key actions. I will briefly round up. So first, we must expand data collection and transparency. As we have become evident, most African countries do not have publicly accessible data on women working in justice ministries, especially in leadership roles.

We must strengthen data system, which means that we must collect gender desegregated data on employees and decision makers, making this information publicly accessible and tracking progress over time. Once this data is available, we must analyze them to better understand why fewer women advance or enter into justice institutions. Using data strategically allows justice ministers to identify structural obstacles and address them more effectively. The final point, we must also support institutional initiatives like this gender equality seal that we are all talking about here. We believe that the seal provides a practical framework for institutions to assess gender equality within the organizations, develop action plans, and strengthen gender responsive policies and services.

So, because the time is up, I would conclude by saying that we believe that justice ministries shape the institutions that make justice possible. Therefore, ensuring gender equality within these institutions is essential for building inclusive and effective justice systems. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you.

Thank you very much for the presentation from our last panelists. So we, we do have five minutes to allow questions, observations, remarks before the next event starts. So we do have five minutes if there is any questions from the floor and I see, please, can you just introduce yourself and ask your question briefly, please? Thank you. Yes, thank you.

Hi, my name is Maya Hamoud and I'm here with my twin sister, Lara Hamoud. And today we stand before you not only as representatives of our nonprofit, the Perception foundation, but as voices for young women. Everywhere. And so one question I wanted to ask you all urgently is that why are there so few women in positions of leadership? I know part of the answer lies deeply in the troubling reality that only 32% of young women and girls worldwide believe that they have as much power of a man.

And that statistic should concern every, every single one of us. And so the question I have for you all today is that we know that when young women are exposed to leadership from very early on, it improves their possibilities and prospects in both the work field and leadership as a whole. And so my question is why, as a kind of world, in government as a whole, are we not doing more to increase these opportunities? Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much. So your question really speaks to why aren't we giving more results, speaking about the issue, but the results are not sufficient. Yes. Yet. Is there any other question before we take the panelists view on that question?

I don't, I. Well, yeah. Yep, yep. Please, yeah. Briefly introduce yourself and, and ask your question.

Thank you.

We can't hear you.

Yeah, yeah. Can you try now? It's working.

Hi, Ministers and Excellencies, thank you so much for this presentation. My name is Frieda Selim.

I am representing the Egyptian center for Women's Rights and I have two very brief questions. So first, my first thought was within the training and magistrates of women. I have asked a similar question from Morocco last night as well. But just like Morocco, Algeria has a very beautiful, multicultural nation with its indigenous people such as the Amazigh. Has there been methods to make sure that they have also been able to participate with their own culture as well as their own language?

And second question that I have very briefly, that there has been a lot of discussion today on a European level, not so much an African level, regarding harassment of female public servants, political figures and journalists. How has Algeria experienced this? If they have, and if it has, how has it been tackled when it comes to protecting women in these professional fields? Thank you so much. Thank you for your questions.

So we do not have enough time to take other questions, unfortunately, as we will have to give the the room back in few minutes. I will maybe ask Natasha if she can briefly answer the first questions, as well as our experts from Pittsburgh to give some insight to the first questions, please.

Thank you very much, Madam Moderator for the floor again. And thank you also for the question, which I think is very much in line with the spirit of an event like this one, which is we may be doing something, but why aren't we doing more so thank you for the question because it provokes further thought above and beyond what we're already doing to put things in place. I think what I would say is as a woman who's also been in the ranks and rising, I would rather look at.

It doesn't always look loud, it doesn't always look like a headline, but it just looks a bit like this panel sometimes. So I would say we certainly don't have the luxury of stopping the kinds of efforts that are being discussed and presented today that are sometimes that look like data and that look like administrative processes and HR discussions need to keep continuing. And I think they are and today is just one example of many. But I believe that we. Your question provokes us to go even further.

So I think that if the CSW is representative of anything, it's the fact that no one is lowering their arms for anything. These efforts continue on a daily basis and like I said, they don't always take a headline. Sometimes it's happening very much behind closed doors and under the surface. So rest assured, the efforts don't stop here.

Dr. Hughes, if you have some elements.

Sure. So I am grateful for this question because I think that the two of you have pointed out something that's quite important and what we've learned about women's leadership and that is the role of the symbolic nature of having women in leadership roles and the wide reaching effects that that can have on society, on other women and girls and on aspirations. And so we do it is this can be a positive cycle and it can be a negative cycle. And so we do see a lot of variation actually around the world. And so there are places where we're seeing more women in leadership and we are getting into that positive feedback, feedback loop.

But there are unfortunately still places that are lagging behind and that are in that negative feedback loop. And so I think the question for people like are in this room are how do you take countries and places that are sort of in that negative feedback loop and move them into a more positive loop. And I think to me it's the partnerships that we've witnessed here today are really key to that. But also not just the partnerships between the governments and UNDP or between UNDP and educational institutions which were really important in producing the data, but also partnerships with organizations like yours. I think civil society, working with governments and working with the un.

All of us sort of need to work together on these issues if we're really going to see change.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Maybe also a male perspective on this, on this issue with Eldardi, please.

Yes, thank you.

First of all, I'd like to stress that everything we do, especially in the question of women's empowerment, access, equity and equality, is based on human rights principles and inclusivity. So I must insist that there is no. No one is left behind. It's a long journey, but we have. We are making strides along that journey.

So that's on. On a general response again, when it comes to why we don't show a lot of progress, I am biased. It's economics. We do not value and cost women's economic participation correctly. I can assure you that if we value and cost women's work at home, GDP in our countries will be boosted dramatically.

You know, we say what you don't value, what you don't have a cost of, you don't value. And we need to make sure that the society, the international community, donors, governments, private sector, understands that value very well. At least in our region today, female levels of education at the university is higher than males levels of education. Where do we translate that advantage into economic calculations? And that will then be.

Will lead to political and institutional and constitutional considerations. This is a process that will take decades, but it is happening as we speak. I'll start here. Thank you very much. Yeah, please.

Of course. So just to add that I think the role that the United nations can play also in that regard is two things. One, you can't improve what you're not measuring. So I think, firstly, having that regular availability of data and information allows therefore for setting of benchmarks, standards and objectives. And then secondly is to identify the structural impediments, which are different in different societies.

In Africa, there is a linkage with colonialism, for example, which persists. Identifying these structural impediments and doing research in. Into the best ways of overcoming them. And I think that's very much part of the un and I fully agree with my colleague that the economic incentive is usually the best scenario to overcome those structural impediments. Thank you.

Thank you very much. As we are now approaching to the closing of this event, I would like to conclude with three takeaways from this event, answering three questions. Basically, why is it important to provide women's access to justice? As it has been said by Aldoderi, I believe that the figure speaks for itself. If you want to increase gdp, if you want a more inclusive society, if you want to achieve gender parity, then you need to provide access for women.

The second question would be, what is the challenge? The challenge is that there are many women in the judiciary system. But when it comes to their representation in the decision making position, there is the problem that is the challenge. So that challenge provide us with the third question. And the third answer would be initiatives like the gender seal and the partnership that we have with the Ministry of Justice in Algeria.

So, so as to really develop the career of women judges, try to see what is the problem, what can be done to provide a balance between family and work, what can be really identified as the key issue to really do that stride and have more women in the decision making processes. So I would like to thank all of our panelists for their dedication, for their insight. Lights, thank all the attendance and see you soon. Goodbye.