Negotiation, Mediation, and Community Consultation

NEGOTIATION, MEDIATION AND COMMUNITY CONSULTATION 1
Negotiation, Mediation, and Community Consultation
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NEGOTIATION, MEDIATION AND COMMUNITY CONSULTATION 2
Negotiation, Mediation, and Community Consultation
In the past century, women recognition as viable and valuable political forces have
been gathering momentums after being catalysed by the different movements of social rights
as well as equality movements. The movement focuses on the promotion of gender equality
as well as the empowerment of women (Pande and Ford 2012). Nonetheless, the progress on
this matter has been slow since nations are yet to reach gender parity in all levels of
education. The idea of gender equality is developed at the distinctive educational level,
which is tailored to equip women with leadership as well as civic skills necessary to make a
contribution that is informed to policy debates (Kleemann, Nunnenkamp, and Thiele 2016).
The essay expounds on the effectiveness of the recent gender quotas as a phenomenon as a
tool for enhancing female political representation as well as meaningful engagement as
compared to the concept of merit and targets while identifying all the factors that relate to the
implemented change.
Merit System
The merit system is a process through which government employees are hired or
promoted based on their ability to perform a given job and not based on the gender quotas
and target system. However, it is imperative to note that the merit system has been deemed
to fail to enhance gender equality. The only importance of the merit system in terms of
selection is to make sure that there is a good quality of work that is provided to the members
of the public (Escandón 2018). It is imperative to note that the use of merit in the process of
selection, hiring, or promotion an honest effective, as well as productive decision-making the
legislative team, is created.
The primary principle of the merit system is motivation as well as the trust of the
elected members of parliament. Members of parliament that are selected based on the merit

NEGOTIATION, MEDIATION AND COMMUNITY CONSULTATION 3
system are deemed to be satisfied with their ability to make decision hence increased chances
to provide an increased level of productivity. In this case, there will be no abuse of power
since the members selected are confident of their qualification. However, there is a major
concern with the use of the merit system. It has been noted that elections discourage most
well qualified women who prefer not to go to the polls.
There has been a stereotype that the imposition of targets or quotas leads to a
reduction of the level of achievement and only the best candidate can be found with merit.
However, the belief that hiring and promoting on merit is not enough since judgment based
on merit is not a science. The decisions made are mostly affected by bias since many of the
decision makers have a well-formulated concept of how a leader is supposed to look like with
most traits favouring men. Therefore, merit must be evaluated as well as be evaluated based
on the metrics that are fully subjected to bias. Nonetheless, performance on different metrics
is not determined by their abilities but by the chances to demonstrate as well, as develop their
abilities.
Gender Quotas
Gender quotas can be described as numerical targets, which stipulate the percent of
women who must be included in a list of candidates as well as the number of seats that must
be allocated to female representatives in a legislature (O’brien and Rickne 2016). Gender
quotas have been developed as a mechanism that could be used to promote female political
engagement as well as representation. It has been considered as the most effective strategies
to ensure that the number of women in parliament across the world. Gender quotas seem to
level the playing ground between women and men in the political scenario. It is imperative to
note that gender quotas have managed to achieve international recognition as a source of
affirmative action towards the elimination of different types of discrimination against women.