{"id":407265,"date":"2021-10-20T08:16:33","date_gmt":"2021-10-20T08:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/?p=407265"},"modified":"2021-10-20T08:16:33","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T08:16:33","slug":"un-deputy-special-representative-welcomes-announcement-on-womens-representation-for-remaining-upper-house-seats-in-jubaland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/un-deputy-special-representative-welcomes-announcement-on-womens-representation-for-remaining-upper-house-seats-in-jubaland\/","title":{"rendered":"UN Deputy Special Representative welcomes announcement on women\u2019s representation for remaining Upper House seats in Jubaland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kismayo:\u2014<\/strong>On a visit to the southern Somali city of Kismayo, a senior United Nations official today hailed Jubaland\u2019s announcement that elections for the remaining four seats for its Upper House representation would be held shortly \u2014 and that women\u2019s representation would be included.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the issues I had wanted to raise with His Excellency was the issue of women\u2019s participation in the Upper House process,\u201d said the UN Secretary-General\u2019s Deputy Special Representative for Somalia, Anita Kiki Gbeho, referring to her scheduled meeting with Jubaland\u2019s President Ahmed Mohamed Islam \u2018Madobe\u2019 earlier on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe beat me to it. He announced \u2014 we are very pleased to have heard the news this morning \u2014 that two seats will be reserved for women, and of the two remaining seats, a woman will be competing for one of the seats. So good news coming out of Jubaland this morning,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The UN official was on an introductory visit \u2014 her first to the southern Federal Member State \u2014 to meet with Jubaland\u2019s leadership, as well as electoral officials, including the chairperson of the State Electoral Implementation Team (SEIT), Siyad Mohamed Mursal, and civil society representatives. The country\u2019s ongoing elections were a key topic on her agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important, since I\u2019m here to serve Somalia, that I go around and understand the different regions and I understand what is important to them,\u201d Ms. Gbeho said. \u201cThis is a time when we\u2019re smack in the middle of the [electoral] process, and we wanted to ensure that the Upper House process is finalized here in Jubaland and then we move on to the Lower House process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jubaland was the first of Somalia\u2019s Federal Member States to start holding Upper House elections. Four seats had already been filled, and the administration announced early on Tuesday that the elections for the remaining four Upper House seats would be completed on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Change of focus<\/strong><\/p>\n

The country\u2019s international partners had previously emphasized the need for the election of the remaining Upper House seats to be completed quickly in order to allow the electoral focus to shift towards the next phase of the federal elections, those for the Lower House, known as the House of the People.<\/p>\n

In her comments in Kismayo, the UN Deputy Special Representative echoed the international community\u2019s points, and noted that lessons could be learned.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means that it can go ahead and begin [the Lower House elections],\u201d Ms. Gbeho said. \u201cWe know that for Somalia this will not be an easy process, we saw the process for the Upper House elections, we saw some of the comments that came through. But if we look at the glass as half-full, then we could learn from the process of the Upper House and use it to influence the Lower House process moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Somalia\u2019s international partners have also been advocating for the country\u2019s leaders to ensure that the electoral processes respect the right of women to participate fully in all aspects of public life, and that the minimum quota of 30 per cent women\u2019s representation should be achieved in Parliament.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen are 50 per cent of the population \u2014 if you move forward with half of your population not being represented, not having a voice, not having a say, I dare to imagine that it’s unlikely that you will find solutions to the problem, and government \u2014 this life of service is about people \u2014 it is about building Somalia,\u201d the UN Deputy Special Representative said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if you don’t have Somalis at the table or if you have half of the population missing when you’re taking decisions,\u201d she continued, \u201cwhen you’re trying to agree what the way forward would look like, I’m not sure you will actually get to your end game or the vision that Somalia imagines for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kismayo:\u2014On a visit to the southern Somali city of Kismayo, a senior United Nations official today hailed Jubaland\u2019s announcement that elections for the remaining four seats for its Upper House representation would be held shortly \u2014 and that women\u2019s representation would be included. \u201cOne of the issues I had wanted to raise with His Excellency […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":407266,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-407265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407265"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":407267,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407265\/revisions\/407267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}