How have approaches to improving governance addressed the question of gender inequality? This book from the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) explores what good governance and citizenship means for poor women who belong to groups excluded from power, resources and decision-making. Based on action research projects by sixteen organisations in eight different country contexts it analyses how women can stake their claim to participation in governance, and make institutions accountable to their interests and rights.
International development agencies supporting the good governance agenda in the 1990’s failed to acknowledge that politics and power play a central role in women’s lives. Their approach, characterised as the anti-political discourse of inclusion, steered clear of engaging with the political arena of governance, focussing instead on the administrative reform of the state.
This book is based on action research (in which participants involvement is an integral part of the process of empowerment) that departs from this anti-political strategy, instead enhancing the voice and representation of women by negotiating with and navigating the political system. The action research investigated governance as a political process. A second defining feature is a focus on women’s citizenship rights rather than mainstreaming gender equality concerns in development agendas. Citizenship was interpreted as a way of defining personhood which links right to agency and the focus was on the most marginalized women. Investigations focused on political contests over the formulation, interpretation and implementation of rights and on ways women’s participation and agency can be enhanced in the process of claiming rights.
The role that civil society can play is dependent on the democratic space available, and the local context. The sixteen organisations carrying out the action research pursued a shared strategy along the following lines:
- The state remained the main governance institution, but new forms of state-society relations were forged to give women the right to participate and demand accountability.
- The focus was on getting women’s voices heard and their role in governance recognised by policy-making institutions, using both agitational strategies and direct engagement.
- Most of the projects worked in tandem with state institutions.
Making gender equality a core concern involves engaging with institutions to change norms, rules and practices, as well as working with the most marginalized women and men to develop their voice and agency. This logic formed the basis of the categorisation of the themes of the book: taking office, increasing responsiveness and accountability of governance institutions and claiming citizens.
- To get women into political office, the demand for measures to promote their participation has to be seen as politically legitimate by all constituencies, including the women themselves.
- To enhance women’s representation stakeholders have to engage with the world of politics. In each case the political context had significant bearing on the constraints faced, the strategies pursued and the gains made.
- The existence of a quota system for affirmative action may get more women into politics, but it does not ensure their legitimacy. Women’s capacity needs to be built and they need to be organised into a political constituency.
- Generating voice does not automatically ensure accountability. Setting more exacting standards for accountability on gender equality outcomes is required.
- Entitling all citizens to the same rights does not necessarily promote equitable outcomes. Claiming citizenship requires working for substantive equality, the right to have rights and making claims visible.
