A global policy-making body, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), dedicated exclusively to the promotion of gender equality and the advancement of women. Every year, representatives of Member States gather at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide.

This paper asks why women politicians tend to do worse in SMD districts than in their PR counterparts, even with gender quotas. Mexico is an excellent case to study this phenomenon because it has PR and a SMD tier, both with a quota rule, and a ban on consecutive reelection that limits the effects of incumbency advantage. This setting allows us to explore a key difference between SMD and closed list PR seats: campaigning. Despite the fact that most female candidates are sent to losing SMD districts in Mexico, we cannot know conclusively whether party leaders ignore quality female candidates in competitive and bastion areas in favor of their male co-partisans.

Advocacy group Human Rights Watch welcomed Saudi Arabia's decision to allow women to vote and run in municipal elections but said it came too late to allow them to take part in Thursday's polls.

The next generation of Algeria's elected bodies will include more women than before. A new law, which establishes a quota for female candidates, will come into force with the 2012 parliamentary vote.
From now on, any list of candidates for legislative elections or elections to wilayas and communal assemblies must include a one-third proportion of women candidates. Failure to abide by the rules will result in the list being rejected.