Definition:
Indicator 5.5.1(b) measures the proportion of positions held by women in local government.
It is expressed as a percentage of elected positions held by women in legislative/ deliberative bodies of local government.
Concepts:
Local government is a result of decentralization, a process of transferring political, fiscal, and administrative powers from the central government to sub-national units of government to regulate and/or run certain government functions or public services, on their own, in the administrative-territorial areas of a country.
The definition of local government follows the 2008 System of National Accounts (SNA) distinction between central, state, and local government (para 4.129). Local government consists of local government units, defined in the SNA as “institutional units whose fiscal, legislative and executive authority extends over the smallest geographical areas distinguished for administrative and political purposes” (para 4.145). What constitutes the local government of a given country is defined by that country’s national legal framework, including national constitutions and local government acts or equivalent legislation.
Each local government unit typically includes a legislative/ deliberative body and an executive body. Legislative/ deliberative bodies, such as councils or assemblies, are formal entities with a prescribed number of members as per national or state legislation. They are usually elected by universal suffrage and have decision-making power, including the ability to issue by-laws, on a range of local aspects of public affairs.
Executive bodies, consisting of an executive committee or a mayor, may be elected or appointed. They prepare and execute decisions made by the legislative/ deliberative body.
Elected positions are the most common manner of selection of local government members. They are selected in local elections, based on a system of choosing political office holders in which the voters cast ballots for the person, persons, or political party that they desire to see elected. The category of elected positions includes both elected persons who competed on openly contested seats and persons selected during the electoral processes on reserved seats or through a candidate quota.
By comparison, members selected for appointed positions (the least common manner of selection of local government members) are nominated, typically by government officials from higher-ranking tiers of government. Appointed members of local government are more frequent among the leadership positions, such as the heads of the executive body, representatives of specific groups (e.g., women, disadvantaged groups, youth); and temporary committees/delegations/caretakers appointed by government officials when a council has been dissolved.
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