Today, the women MPs of Parliament women’s caucus met with Ms Helen Clark, the current administrator of UNDP and the former Prime Minister of New Zealand.
I like other MP’s was quite excited to meet her. Our meeting took place over lunch. The lunch meeting was hosted by Azalina Othman, the Minister in the PM’s Department cum chairperson of Parliament women’s caucus.
We have had quite good and lively discussion on women in politics and how to encourage more women to be involved in politics or to be elected. On top of proportional representation election system, some countries also fixed certain constituencies as constituencies can only be contested by female candidates by law, as one of the ways to ensure a fair amount of women are represented in in Parliament.
Ms Helen also emphassied that local councils is the best channel to promote women to join politics. She said there are many training courses organised by political parties for intending women who are interested in politics or to be candidates in New Zealand, so that they are more prepared when they take up higher position in politics.
Helen Clark also shared about her works in UNDP. She said the main objectives of UNDP is to encourage countries to implement sustainable development, and to protect the environment.
For those who are interested to know the background about Helen Clark, this is what I got from Wikipedia:
Helen Elizabeth Clark, ONZ SSI (born 26 February 1950) is the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and was the 37th Prime Minister of New Zealand. As Prime Minister she served three consecutive terms from 1999 to 2008 and was the first woman elected at a general election as the Prime Minister, and was the fifth longest serving person to hold that office.[3] She has been Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, the third-highest UN position, since 2009.[4]
