Ms Ramírez and her fellow leaders say that it is often hard to get residents to attend council meetings, and to get ministries to respond to their needs.
The former chief of the occupation authority, L. Paul Bremer III, argued then that officials were being held to an impossible standard and that in the emergency after the invasion it was vital to get ministries started and pay in the hands of Iraqis.
"We need to figure out how we get ministries and the government to talk to one another more effectively, and for them to speak with the private sector," said Manish Bapna, the executive vice president and managing director of the World Resources Institute.
She does not seem to have been overly troubled by glass ceilings, and has struggled to appear as though she suffers alongside her sisters.The Women's Unit was supposed to epitomise "joined-up government"—getting ministries to work together, a favourite New Labour theme.
African governments will face pressure, from the World Bank and the African Development Bank among others, to slash red tape and encourage technology firms in the hope of cutting the cost of going online by two-thirds and getting ministries, hospitals and schools onto the internet by 2012.
Mr. Liu said that he had tried to get the ministry's support last year, but that the process was "too difficult".
But it took seven more weeks for Lebanon's fractious political camps to decide who would get which ministry.
"Greg, if you want to get into ministry, we have to have a relationship," Thompson said Barker later told him.
These people are public servants, they are paid by the state – so we need to get the ministry of religion involved.
A second round of cabinet posts are scheduled to be announced next week, and the question of who would get what ministry was postponed for later.
