and a network of researchers and experts working in this ﬁeld to be developed. The ﬁrst workshop in the series examined Asian experiences of quotas, and was held in Jakarta, Indonesia, in September 2002. The second workshop, on Latin American experiences of quotas, was held in Lima, Peru, in February 2003. The meeting on quotas in Africa, held in South Africa in November 2003, is the third in the series, and is to be followed by workshops in Europe and the Arab World in 2004. IDEA works in partnership with international, regional and local organizations. This workshop was organized in partnership with EISA and SADC PF. These partners, and others, are particularly important in light of the Southern African Development Community Declaration on Gender, obliging member states to achieve 30 percent representation of women by 2005. The countries represented in this meeting, however, were not only members of SADC. Experts also came from Central, East, North and West Africa, reﬂecting the diversity of the continent. Africa is an interesting region in regard to analyzing the successes and failures associated with quota implementation. The legislated quota system is employed in eight countries – Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Morocco, Namibia at the local level, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda (and previously in Egypt). Informal political party quotas exist in a further twelve nations. In a number of countries debates are taking place about the implementation of quotas, with women’s organizations at the local and regional levels actively lobbying for them. There are also important examples of quotas existing in decision-making bodies other than national parliaments, including the African Union (AU) and the SADC PF, as well as quotas that seek to include women in peace processes and negotiations, as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). While it is possibly too early to talk about a tradition of quota implementation on the continent, there are clear cases where quotas have been instrumental in ensuring women access to decision-making bodies.