At the beginning of 2024, Transparency International-Macedonia published the report: „National Integrity System Assessment North Macedonia”, which contains an analysis of the situation of the 15 pillars of the national integrity system in relation to corruption and the effectiveness of national efforts to deal with corruption.
The NIS Report was prepared during 2022 and 2023 within the project “EU4 Rule of Law: Citizen Engagement for Public Integrity (CEPI) in the Western Balkans and Turkey”, which was funded by the European Union and the Government of Switzerland.
Within this Report, for the first time, there is a gender sensitivity analysis with recommendations conducted for the 14 pillars which are very relevant for the country’s integrity system. The analysis was conducted according to a methodology prepared by Transparency International. Gender sensitivity was one of the indicators to analyse the work of the 14 out of 15 pillars on which overall assessment was conducted.
Legislature
Score: 75/100
For the parliamentary elections in 2024, the law mandates a minimum of 40 per cent representation of either gender on each candidate list. All registered candidate lists met the gender requirements. While women comprised 43 per cent of all parliamentary candidates, they were often placed in the lowest positions allowed by the law, and women candidates headed only 25 per cent of the lists. The political parties featured few women speakers at campaign events, and parties appeared to make little effort to engage women voters. Issues related to gender equality were largely absent from campaign discourse. One of the two candidates in the presidential run-off was a woman.
In the composition of the Parliament for the period 2020-2024, 46 of the 123 representatives are women or 38.33 per cent. One of the three vice-presidents of the Assembly is a woman, while the general secretary is a woman.
Recommendations:
It is recommended that the placement of women on the election lists is improved and that more women are placed in the upper part of the election lists with more women heading the lists
It is recommended that political parties increase women engagement at meaningful positions in the parties’ bodies and make them visible in the media and on the social platforms
It is recommended that the media is sensitized to portrait women politicians’ regularly in equal proportion (as much as possible) as men politicians and play an active role in empowering women consistently
It is recommended that there is consistent and continuous capacity building for each new Parliament, for both women and men members of Parliament, on gender equality, gender mainstreaming, analyzing laws and policies from gender perspective as well as on gender responsive budgeting, media and online platforms presence and usage
Continuous training and awareness raising campaigns for women on how to deal and overcome the online (and offline) threats that are being sent to them increasingly
National Integrity System Assessment North Macedonia Gender Indicators Recommendations
