Female Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) contributed around 48 percent of the regular plenary agenda of the National Assembly during the second parliamentary year (2025–2026) of the 16th National Assembly, according to the latest Women Parliamentarians Performance Report released by the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN).

This level of contribution is significantly higher than women’s share in the Assembly’s membership, which remains below 22 percent. Most women MNAs currently enter the House through reserved seats rather than direct election.

Titled “Women Did It Again!”, the report evaluates female MNAs’ parliamentary performance across five dimensions including their contribution to the parliamentary agenda; participation in plenary debates; attendance in House sittings; parliamentary treatment of agenda submitted by women MNAs; and individual profiles of women parliamentarians.  The report focuses solely on plenary performance and does not cover committee work or constituency activities. Moreover, verbal interventions during Question Hour, such as supplementary questions, are also excluded.

Following are key findings of the report:

Agenda contribution exceeds membership share: On a per-capita basis, female MNAs submitted agenda items at a substantially higher rate than male MNAs. On average, each female MNA submitted 16 agenda items during the year, compared with five items per male MNA. However, women’s overall share of the agenda declined from 55 percent recorded in the previous parliamentary year (2024–2025).

Parliamentary treatment of women MNAs’ agenda: The report introduces the Gender Responsiveness Score (GRS) to measure how frequently the House addresses agenda submitted by female MNAs compared with that submitted by male MNAs. The overall GRS for the reporting period is 1.0, indicating that the Assembly addressed women MNAs’ agenda at a similar rate as that of male MNAs. However, category-wise analysis reveals differences. Private member bills, motions for public interest discussions and proposals to amend the Assembly rules of procedure submitted by female MNAs was addressed less frequently than submissions by male MNAs in these categories.

Policy areas raised by women MNAs: The report also challenges the assumption that women parliamentarians primarily focus on gender-specific issues. Agenda submitted by female MNAs covered a wide range of policy areas, including economic policy, taxation, national security, local governance, and parliamentary procedure, in addition to legislation relating to women’s rights and social protection. Overall, 72 percent of agenda items submitted by female MNAs addressed national-level policy issues.

Reserved-seat and general-seat MNAs: The analysis also identifies differences between women elected on general seats and those occupying reserved seats. Female MNAs elected on general seats participated in debates at higher rates than reserved-seat MNAs. On the other hand, the female MNAs elected on reserved seats contributed more agenda.

Concentration of legislative activity: The report further finds that a small cohort of female MNAs accounts for a large share of legislative activity. The top five female MNAs by agenda submissions contributed a disproportionately higher portion of the total agenda submitted by women members. Moreover, six female MNAs attended sittings regularly without speaking in debates or submitting agenda items during the reporting period. This concentration indicates that enabling conditions supporting high-performing members may need to be expanded to encourage broader participation among women parliamentarians.

Download Women Did It Again: Women Parliamentarians’ Performance Report 2025-2026