Despite making up more than half of the country’s population and electorate, Bhutanese women remain underrepresented in elected leadership positions. The country has been mobilising various initiatives, both at the national and grassroots levels, to tackle barriers keeping women out of governance. One such nationwide initiative, a training for aspiring women leaders, recently concluded. The training intends to prepare aspiring women leaders for the Functional Literacy and Possession of Skills Test and encourage their participation in the Fourth Local Government Elections 2027. The test is scheduled for Tuesday.
Going by the numbers, women’s representation in elected leadership positions remains low.
For instance, during the Local Government Elections 2021, women won close to 180 seats across the country. Although this was a slight increase from 2016, when around 165 women were elected to local government, the gap remains wide.
In 2021, more than 1200 men were elected to various local government positions.
To address the gap and increase women’s participation in the upcoming LG Elections 2027, the Bhutan Centre for Media and Democracy conducted a training to prepare aspiring women leaders to take the Functional Literacy and Possession of Skills Test with greater confidence.
The three-day training simultaneously concluded in Wangdue Phodrang and Tsirang.
However, according to an official from the Bhutan Centre for Media and Democracy, only close to 120 out of over 650 registered aspiring women leaders attended the training programme.
The official said some could not attend due to time constraints and domestic responsibilities. Gasa and Bumthang did not see any participation.
During the training, participants learned about Functional Competency Assessment and Functional Competency Engagement, including communication processes, reading and writing correspondence, and digital information technology, based on the criteria set by the Election Commission of Bhutan.
“I have learned a lot through my work. Earlier, we used to prepare most of the documents manually, and that was fine. But things have changed now. Writing everything manually takes a lot of time. So, to save time and provide services efficiently, it has become very important for us to know how to use laptops and other digital tools,” said Thuji Om, Ruebisa Mangmi in Wangdue Phodrang.
“During this three-day training, we learned how to write essays, official letters and correspondence, as well as different types of agreements. I did not feel confident due to a lack of such training. But after attending this training, I am more confident and believe that I will be able to take the FLT successfully,” added Dawa Zam, an aspiring woman leader from Dagala Gewog in Thimphu.
“Earlier, I did not know how to operate a computer. After attending this training, I learned about 50 to 60 percent of the basic computer skills. For instance, in the villages, if there are three aspiring male candidates, there is often only one aspiring female candidate because women feel hesitant about taking on such responsibilities. However, with the support and training we received, we were encouraged and gained confidence. We now feel that there is nothing women cannot do,” said Chencho Lham, another aspiring woman leader from Lango Gewog in Paro.
The training is supported by UNDP Bhutan and the European Union under the project titled strengthening people-centric and inclusive access to justice.
“What we intend to do here is to provide a capacity-building workshop, especially for aspiring women leaders, and also, with the new notification from the election offices, the FLT exam would also include digital assessment. I think this has created a lot of fear and also uncertainty among lots of candidates, especially among aspiring women leaders. So, in that context, we have created, we have developed a module to build the capacities of all the aspiring women leaders and to prepare them for the Functional Literacy Test,” said Kencho Tshering, Programme Officer with the Bhutan Centre for Media and Democracy.
According to records with ECB, nearly 3700 aspiring candidates have registered to contest in the upcoming Fourth Local Government Elections. Of these, a little over 650 are aspiring women leaders.
Changa Dorji, Wangdue Phodrang
