The head of both the municipal councils in Penang are now women with the appointment of urban planner Maimunah Mohd Shariff as the new president of the Seberang Perai Municipal Council.

Today happens to be International Women’s Day. So this is good news to mark this day.

Butterworth and BM and other parts of the mainland really need someone to look carefully at urban planning. I hope the MPSP will do something about the entire beach-front of Butterworth (particularly the mess along the ironically named Pantai Bersih), the poor condition of drainage, and the lack of green spaces for recreation. Continue reading »

 

Today, I am attending a workshop on gender responsive budgeting in Penang.

“Gender responsive what?” I hear you ask. Basically it means incorporating the gender perspective – too often overlooked – in every stage of the budget planning process, including measuring the impact or outcome of the actual spending. Continue reading »

 

Girls and women are excelling in secondary and tertiary education; yet formal women’s participation in public life and major decision-making remains lower. Why is that?

This is a piece I wrote for IPS:

It is a paradox, all right. Women make up more than half of those who take part in protests and other activities organised by her political party on issues affecting low-income workers, says Rani Rasiah of the Socialist Party of Malaysia.

But when it comes to holding official positions at the party’s local branches, more than half of the officials happen to be men, she observes. Continue reading »