Creating New Spaces: Women's Experiences of Political Participation in Communities

"Research on women’s political participation at the community level was undertaken by Womankind in four very different countries - Ghana, Zimbabwe, Nepal and Afghanistan. The work in each context intends to increase women’s political participation and voice."

This research for Womankind Worldwide focuses on the spaces created for women by governments or by Womankind’s partners, examining "how women access the spaces, what they learn, what benefits they get from them and how far their participation enables them to organise and make demands on Local Government for better service provision." 

Four partnering women’s rights organisations (WROs) with longstanding community relationships were selected in four countries. The research focused on one or two spaces located at the local level: spaces where women meet with each other and those in which they meet with decision makers to influence them or engage in decision-making processes. It examined the character of each space, for example: who created the space; who was invited there and who did the inviting; and who established the rules and agenda. The research also examined, for example:  inclusion and exclusion, training, how issues were taken up by decision makers, how women shift from personal issues to community issues, what provided legitimacy and what was enabling.

Country and local contexts, which differed in each circumstance, are described along with the prior participation of women and the partner contexts. The methodology included partnering a Womankind manager with a local consultant to map the work and find key informants. Questions asked and exercises and analysis were undertaken with the understanding that "women's inequality [i]s a source of social injustice and exclusion and that it is structural and systemic...." 

Spaces in Ghana, Zimbabwe and Nepal were created by Womankind’'s partners especially to enhance women’s political participation., often to bring some key local-level decisionmakers together in one place to meet and negotiate. In Nepal, the groups were encouraged to become savings and credit groups. In Afghanistan, the invited spaces are established by the Government to promote women's engagement in local-level planning. Each group had a wide age range, but varied in participatory and leadership experience. In several contexts, women were educated, but in Nepal groups were organised for the Dalit class and mostly illiterate. Most women had to obtain parent or marital partner permission to attend. "In Ghana, Zimbabwe and Nepal the mobilisation of women for achieving specific purposes was a key aim of the spaces, focusing especially on improving service delivery and promoting leadership in a range of decision-making spaces (Ghana and Zimbabwe), inclusion, challenging caste-discrimination, accessing entitlements for Dalits and income generation (Nepal), political lobbying and holding decision makers to account (Zimbabwe and Ghana), bringing women’s voices into community development planning (Afghanistan)."

Findings showed that there is power in women-only spaces and value in participation for women related to their growing confidence and increasing empowerment to speak and assume leadership roles. The research showed women taking part in "political actions and achieving some positive results especially around improving the provision of and access to some essential services....The research emphasises the need to pay attention to the specifics of each context and to understand how best to leverage women’s agency to address those holding control over key resources. The learning and confidence building takes time and investing more time and resources into the spaces that have been created would ensure the work is fully embedded and can continue over the longerterm...."