Suad Ibrahim Abdi is a women's rights activist from Somaliland. She was the country representative for Progressio She is a member of the Somaliland National Women's Network (Nagaad) which she helped found in 1997. She is the Somaliland national representative for Progressio, an international non-governmental organisation campaigning for democracy in the country.<ref nameprog/><ref nameguardian/> Progressio has supplied specialists to support the work of local organisations working in the field and provided observers for the 2010 Somaliland presidential election which it declared free and fair.<ref name=prog/>
Abdi is campaigning for the implementation of a 20% quota of Somaliland's MPs to be female. Currently only one member of parliament out of 164 is female. Two previous parliamentary bills were blocked by the House of Elders (upper house) or ran out of debating time. Abdi said she would stand in the 2015 elections (postponed to 2017) but would not seek to become a government minister.<ref name=guardian/>
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