5.5 Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life
Target status
The Act on Equal Status and Equal Rights Irrespective of Gender stipulates that when appointments are made to committees, councils and boards on behalf of the state and municipalities, it must be ensured that the gender ratio is as equal as possible and not less than 40% of each gender when there are more than three representatives. This should not prevent the nomination and appointment of people with gender-neutral registration in the national register, but the proportion of women must never be less than 40%. This also applies to boards of limited companies and companies of which the state or municipality is the main owner. Furthermore, it is stipulated that when a nomination is made to a committee, council and board on behalf of the state and municipalities, both a man and a woman must be nominated. The nominating party may derogate from the aforementioned condition when objective reasons make it impossible to nominate both a man and a woman, in which case the nominating party must then explain the reasons for this.
The Act on Public Limited Companies, Act on Private Limited Companies, Act on Co-operative Societies and Act on Unlimited Partnerships also provide for the same arrangement when appointments are made to the boards of companies with 50 or more employees.
Amendments to the Standing Orders of the Althingi, which were approved in May 2021, stipulate that consideration must be given to the ratio of women to men in the activities of the parliament. This should be as equal as the results of the parliamentary elections and gender ratios within parliamentary parties allow. They also state that in elections, it must be ensured that the ratio of women to men is as equal as possible and not less than 40% when there are more than three representatives. This does not prevent the election of people with neutral gender registration in the national register. However, the percentage of women must never be less than 40%.
The proportion of women in the Althingi has been gradually increasing over the past decades, and the proportion of women after the last parliamentary election (2017) was 38.1%. The percentage of women after the parliamentary elections in 2016 had been 47.6% and had never been higher. The percentage of women elected to local authorities in 2018 was 47.2% and has never been higher. In the parliamentary elections on 25 September 2021, 30 women were elected, and the percentage of women in parliament is now 47.6%.
At the beginning of 2019, women comprised 36% of the managing directors of local authorities and almost 42% of heads of state institutions.
The Icelandic labour market is highly gender-segregated. Women and men perform different jobs, and gender-based study choices and gender division between professions are still evident. Men more often hold more power in the business world than women, and men still seem to have better career development opportunities than women. The consequences include undervaluation of women's jobs, while the wage gap and difference in pension rights between the genders can be attributed to a large extent to the gendered labour market.
The Gender Equality Action programme for the period 2020-2023 provides for work to be done to evaluate the implementation of the provisions of the law on gender ratio in company management. The project includes, among other things, scrutiny of the legislation and the means for improvement identified if necessary.
In 2019 the Prime Minister's office and the Association of Businesswomen in Iceland (FKA) concluded an agreement on government support for the project Gender Balance Scale. That agreement has been renewed annually and is now valid until 2023. The purpose of the project is to promote a more equal share of women and men in the top management of companies in Icelandic business life, so that by 2027 the ratio between the genders in companies’ executives will be 40/60. FKA will collect and harmonise statistics on the share of women and men directors and executives of public and private sector companies. The dashboard of Gender Balance Scale will be updated regularly, education will be provided on the importance of diversity in boards and management teams and presentations will be held on the dashboard and objectives of the project for enterprises, public authorities and the general public.
The Strategic Regional Plan for 2018-2024 includes a project whose goal is to increase the number of women in local government and encourage women to participate in the management of the local community. Efforts were directed at improving the gender ratio in local authorities. An educational and awareness campaign was launched prior to the municipal elections in 2022, which was called JÁTAK (Yes please). The campaign focused on candidacies for city, town and rural governments to consider diversity, safeguard gender equality and present candidate lists that span the diverse spectrum of human life. The Directorate of Equality was responsible for the project, in collaboration with the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Transport and Local Government, the Icelandic Women's Rights Association and Icelandic Association of Local Authorities.
International cooperation
Iceland promotes women’s participation and leadership training to increase women’s share in important decision-making processes and negotiations across different sectors. Examples of support include leadership training and efforts to increase the participation of women from developing countries in international negotiations on climate issues, for example the UN climate conferences.
Iceland advocates the active participation of women in peace negotiations, in the drafting of peace treaties and in conflict prevention in accordance with resolutions of the United Nations Security Council on women, peace and security and Iceland's national plan related to them.
UN Women is one of Iceland’s key priority partners for multilateral development cooperation and a key partner for the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment. The organisation encourages women to participate in political life, promotes women's economic independence and does everything in its power to eradicate violence against women. The Icelandic government's has a multi-year framework agreement with UN Women with the most recent agreement renewed in 2020 for cooperation until 2023.
The Icelandic government also supports the Gender Equality Studies and Training Programme at GRÓ, which promotes gender equality and social justice in developing countries through interdisciplinary research, teaching and communication. Iceland has also placed major emphasis on the role of the privater sector in international development cooperation, focusing on economic empowerment and economic growth in order to achive the sustainable development goals.
Iceland supports the “SheTrades” programme by the International Trade Center, which was established in parallel with the adoption of the United Nations SDGs. The main goal of the programme is economic empowerment of women and the connection of women in developing countries and in war-torn areas to international markets. Furthermore, Iceland puts an emphasis on gender equality issues in the conclusion of free trade agreements and on the position of women in international trade through its advocacy in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Together with a group of like-minded countries, Iceland initiated the creation of the Buenos Aires Ministerial Declaration on the Economic Empowerment of Women, which was approved in connection with the WTO Ministerial Meeting in 2017. The Declaration served as the basis for further work by the organisation. In informal working group on gender equality and business was established in autumn 2020. Iceland has led its work in cooperation with Botswana and El Salvador. The working group is open to all member states of the WTO, but unfortunately not all states have seen cause to support its efforts. It was therefore a major milestone when the ministers of all WTO member states agreed to mention the importance of women's economic empowerment in the joint Ministerial Declaration of the organisation's twelfth Ministerial Meeting held June 2022.
Through it’s development cooperation, Iceland supported the Action Aid organisation in Malawi and the "50:50 Campaign", which aimed to increase the participation of women in politics and increase the number of women parliamentarians. This resulted in an increase in women’s political participation in the Mangochi district where ten women were elected to parliament and to the regional administration.
A special pilot project on the empowerment of women and youth in Mangochi district was supported in 2021. With the support from Iceland, the district's equality office was formulated and the districts first policy on gender equality formulated. As part of the policy, the Directorate of Equality carried out an assessment of the number of and status of women's cooperatives in the district and identified six active cooperatives that were considered to have promising business models. These groups, comprising 160 women, were given training in IT and entrepreneurship as well as production and business skills. In addition, they were supported to increase their access to markets, financial services and material assistance. Amongst the businesses supported were cooperatives working on peanut cultivation and fish processing.
The Women Political Leaders Summit has been held in Iceland from 2018. It is a collaborative effort between the Government of Iceland, the national parliamaent Althingi and the organisation Women Political Leaders (WPL). International women leaders from governments and parliaments are invited to the WPL Summit, as well as leading women in international business, culture organizations, science and technology. The motto of the WPL Summit is WE CAN DO IT, which refers to how change can be achieved and contributions made towards a better world by ensuring the equal participation of both women and men in decision-making, strategic planning and leadership processes.
Gender equality is a cross-cutting issue as well as a specific objective in all of Iceland’s development cooperation. This includes cooperation with the World Bank. Through the Bank's Institute for International Development Association (IDA), a variety of equality projects are implemented in the world's poorest countries. Iceland supports the Umbrella Facility for Gender Equality (UFGE) of the World Bank, which contributes to policy development and thanks to which gender considerations have become more prominent in all of the bank's work.
Responsibility
Prime Minister’s Office
Ministry for Foreign Affairs