Only 30.6% of mayors are women in the Netherlands. This male/female ratio is even lower than 30% for alderwomen, the position next in status to the mayor.
Director Sabra Bano considers that “it is a significant step forward that the Mayor of Rijswijk, Huri Sahin and other female mayors have recently highlighted the persisting gender inequality in Dutch regional and local governance stressing the poor status of women and their candidacy in assuming a political office.
Mayor Sahin rightly points to the core issue which is the influx of female candidates that remains relatively low”.
Inclusivity within the mayor's corps must be increased to represent a society in all its diversity. Efforts are being made to increase the influx of women to positions such as alderperson and mayor. Local administrations have been investing in new networks aimed at looking for potential female talent outside of the political sector to fill local leadership positions. There is also an ongoing effort to influence the King’s Commissioners, the confidential committees, and their trainers as they play a key role in active recruitment for local governorate positions. Hereby, it is also interesting to consider how inclusive these elected committees are, to further impact the current efforts.
As the only Dutch international gender and development organisation, Gender Concerns International has been working to address the issue of women's political participation and especially Gender Electoral Parity (GEP) internationally since as early as 2004.
During the national elections in 2017 and 2021 in the Netherlands the organisation launched its original gender election observation missions (GEOM), assessing women's electoral participation at various levels.
GEOM Tool is a democracy-enhancing programme that promotes women’s electoral participation throughout the entire electoral cycle. We are glad that our vision (3 R’s: Respect, Recognition & Resources) has provided the backbone for the conception of Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP) in Sweden and to our delight more recently in the Netherlands. However, "we consider it is vital to have a Feminist National Policy (FNP) that addresses persisting inequalities in decision-making more importantly on a national, regional, and local level" concludes Bano.