The Changing Global Face of Politics: Training tomorrow’s female leaders

January 2007

By Nancy Bocskor

Dr. Samar Rashdan al-Roomi's husband was taken from their Kuwait City home during the Iraqi invasion in 1991; she never heard from him again. She was left with two sons to raise, so she finished her education and became a communications professor at the Kuwait University College for Women. Then she traveled to the United States to attend the Women's Campaign School at Yale's summer program in the hopes of educating herself and others about how to run for office.

When Kuwait granted women suffrage in 2005, al-Roomi decided to learn as much as possible about the campaign process by attending WCS. After the program she returned home to form a non-governmental organization, the Kuwait Center for Research and Training in Leadership Development, to train Kuwaiti college women to participate in their national electoral process. Now a columnist for the Arab Times, al-Roomi writes about women in the political process. She recently wrote two major pieces: "Arab Women as Transformational Leaders" and "Kuwaiti Women's use of Blogs for Political Empowerment."

Ambassador Rev. Princess Elizabeth Ogbon-Day is a National Party of Nigeria candidate for President of that country. She was Nigeria's first woman ambassador, and is a social-justice politician. She came to WCS to find the best information available in the most compact setting. These two women are visionaries in their countries and are working to achieve equality in politics. In order to do this, they came to the United States to attend one of the few training programs dedicated to them and women across the world.

The Women's Campaign School at Yale, founded in 1993, attracts women from the United States and around the world "who know that leadership ultimately requires the ability to work with people who have different opinions," Martha Sterling-Golden, president of the campaign school, said.

Their summer session, sixty hours over five days, is an intense schedule. But participants are committed to increasing the number of women in government. This year, women attended the school from eight foreign countries.

Another opportunity for international women to travel to the U.S. for training is the Women and Politics Institute at American University, where approximately 200 women have attended programs at their Washington, D.C. campus in 2006, according to Associate Director Dr. Sarah Brewer.

Women have come from Russia, the Middle East (including Kuwait, Qatar and Afghanistan), Africa (South Africa, Gabon, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Tunisia) and Asia (Japan, South Korea) to learn the tricks of the trade from top political leaders.

In many cases, women don't need to leave their home country to receive training. The International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, and Women's Campaign International teach women how to become more politically empowered in their countries by running for public office.

In a 1982 speech before the British Parliament, President Ronald Reagan said, "Let us now begin a major effort to secure the best -- a crusade for freedom that will engage the faith and fortitude of the next generation. For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny."

The following year, in 1983, Congress created the National Endowment for Democracy to support emerging democracies. IRI and NDI were launched from this mandate. Both organizations send political experts to countries to supplement in-country political training programs. And while each group tends to highlight talent from either the Republican or Democratic Party, their campaign training techniques are virtually identical.

Both IRI and NDI have established special programs within their organizations to prepare women for public office, and train women throughout Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, Asia and Europe.

At IRI, which is chaired by U.S. Sen. John McCain, The Women's Democracy Network was established in March 2006 in response to a "growing interest for networking and training among women in countries that had recently transitioned to democracy," IRI Executive Vice-President Judy Van Rest said.

The Network's inaugural conference coincided with International Women's Day held on March 8, 2006, and brought more than 30 women leaders from around the world. "Most women are just beginning to enter the political sphere, and many continue to struggle to gain positions that will enable them to push forward democratic reforms," Van Rest said. "WDN works to establish regional networks and specialized training activities for its members."

NDI's Win with Women Global Initiative complements more than two decades of the Institute's work with women from every region of the world. The Initiative was launched in 2003 by NDI and its Chairwoman Madeleine K. Albright to promote strategies for increasing women's political leadership worldwide. The anchor of the Win with Women Global Initiative is the Global Action Plan, a document that outlines practical recommendations for political parties to broaden their appeal by addressing women's role as voters, candidates, party activists and elected officials.

"NDI helps women acquire the tools to engage in the political process. Our programs help create an environment in which women can advocate on matters of policy, run for political office, be elected, govern effectively, and participate meaningfully in every facet of civic and political life," Kristin Haffert, the program's manager, said.

This year, NDI worked with women in every corner of the world, helping them change the face of politics. The election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia -- Africa's first elected female head of state -- drew attention to women's leadership in African politics. In conjunction with Johnson Sirleaf's inauguration, NDI organized a high-profile conference for women leaders from the region to meet with the president and discuss women's political and economic involvement in her country.

Inspired by the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, Women's Campaign International was founded in 1998 by Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, former Congresswoman and Emmy-award winning journalist, and Fredrica S. Friedman, former editorial director at Little, Brown & Company.

"WCI's programs help women find their political voices by giving them tangible skills in areas such as leadership, public speaking, media relations, grass-roots organizing, campaign strategies, voter outreach and mobilization, public speaking, policy analysis and fund raising," Margolies-Mezvinsky said.

To date, WCI has conducted programs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Namibia, Tanzania, Romania, Venezuela, Uruguay, and the Andean Region. Currently, WCI is conducting programs in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Afghanistan.

"When women lead, dynamics change -- silenced voices are heard, healthy babies are born, children read, economies grow, and families awake to new possibilities every day," Margolies-Mezvinsky said.

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Nancy Bocskor is president of the Nancy Bocskor Company, a firm specializing in training for officeholders, candidates and campaign workers in the U.S. and abroad. She teaches fund raising at George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management. Bocskor is a member of the Board of Directors of the Women's Campaign School at Yale, where she chairs the school's curriculum committee.