Lesotho, a small, landlocked country located within South Africa, was ambitious about reaching gender parity at the turn of the century. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili in the 2000s and early 2010s, the country passed a number of gender equality reforms, addressing inequities in land ownership and marriage rights, among others. 

Mosisili’s administration also imposed gender quotas in a rather unique way. In 2005, it implemented a randomized gender quota at the local level to allocate 30 percent of electoral seats to women candidates. And then in 2011, it tried to implement another gender quota for national parliamentary seats. However, both these measures had mixed results. 

On today’s episode of the Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women, reporter Pascalinah Kabi explores why Mosisili was so passionate about gender equality and what could have made his efforts more successful. Then, host Reena Ninan speaks with University of California, Berkeley, political science professor Amanda Clayton, who has studied the impact of gender quotas around the world—including in Lesotho. 

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