In October, members of the ALWANE-Palestine committee protested outside of various ministry offices to raise awareness about a deficit in women’s leadership in the Palestinian Territories. ALWANE-Palestine Country Director Abeer Abu Ghaith was among the leaders of the demonstrations. Abeer wrote the following article about the reasons behind the demonstrations, and what ALWANE-Palestine hopes to achieve: The ALWANE-Palestine committee has adopted the issue of Palestinian women’s economic empowerment through working on three strategic goals:

1. Raising awareness about the significance of women's participation in the economy at the national level

2. Creating a supportive legal environment for women‘s advancement.

3. Increasing women's participation in the labor market locally and globally.

As part of the second goal, ALWANE-Palestine launched a new initiative entitled “Partners in Foundation and Leadership”, which aims to establish public sector policies that could lead to an increase in the representation of women in leadership positions. Through advocacy and networking with various civil society organizations, ALWANE-Palestine hopes to increase women’s participation and leadership both in the public and private sector of Palestinian society.

According to data released by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics for 2011/2012, the percentage of women’s participation in public office in the West Bank reached 41.1% versus 58.9% of men. And 12.6% of public sector employees (A4 degree) are women compared to 87.4% of men in the same degree.

When these data were analyzed by the ALWANE committee, we found there is a real problem in the appointment of women in leadership positions in the public sector.

To address this issue, the ALWANE-Palestine committee has been working on “Partners in Foundation and Leadership” initiative which is initially focusing its efforts on the public sector, especially in key ministries such as the Ministry of Economy, Finance, Interior, Foreign Affairs and Planning, all of which show a lower than average percentage of women in leadership positions as observed through a number of studies and reports. ALWANE-Palestine collected and analyzed statistics, data and studies that we received from General Personnel Council that showed the significant absence of women in these important roles despite an overall recognition of women’s strengths and effectiveness by many officials who were interviewed in these ministries.

The findings that ALWANE –Palestine found are summed up in absence of transparency and lack of information related to appointment procedures.

In this context, the ALWANE committee prepared a Policy Paper to be handed to the Palestinian Prime Minister, Dr. Salam Fayyad. In addition, we have been implementing an advocacy campaign by using social media through creating a Facebook page for this initiative. Moreover, this initiative was launched in partnership with "Al Hait," a group that works to deliver their messages through creative expression in the form of community art and murals. Their work mainly focuses on social issues at refugee camps and marginalized areas.

The ALWANE-Palestine committee has planned to conduct demonstration in front of the Palestinian cabinet during weekly ministries meeting in Ramallah chaired by Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad, in order to draw attention to this issue.

Protesters were university students, representative of Palestinian election list “Banat Al-Balad” Ms. Ilham, a representative of Birzeit University, a representative of the Ministry of women's Affairs, and the members of the Al Hait painting group. Also, ALWANE-Palestine met the General Manager Director in cabinet Mr. Abdul Nasser Daraghmeh and gave him ALWANE's Policy Paper who in turn handed it to the Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad during the ministries meeting session.

Some of the signs held by demonstrators read:

1. Freedom of information access related to appointments procedures.

2. Transparency and integrity in the appointment procedures specifically in senior staff positions.

3. Applying the principles of equal opportunities between women and men.

4. Applying accountability systems in appointment and promotion procedures specifically for senior staff.

5. No partisanship in appointment process.

6. Creating a suitable and encouraging environment for women to access and obtain leadership positions.

We have received an email from telecommunication and information technology minister Dr. Safa Nasser Edin telling us that “she made sure that our policy papers were handed to the Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayyad. She spoke to him about ALWANE-Palestine and our campaign, and told us that he is totally with the ideas stressing that he did many procedures in the past to help women take leadership positions in non-traditional posts. Also, he promised to follow up.

We will be followed up with prime minister regarding the Policy Paper; also we will work to conduct a national conference to discuss the ways to foster women leadership in the public sector. On the second step, we will work on the promote women’s leadership roles in Private sector.