This briefing draws on recent ODI research and evaluation to review opportunities to promote women’s political participation and leadership in transitional and post-conflict settings, assess current international efforts to do so, and provide recommendations for policy and programming in this area.
Key findings:
- Post-conflict and transitional settings provide real opportunities to renegotiate women’s political power and advance gender-equality goals.
- Informal political and social norms, as well as the capabilities of women politicians and activists, shape their ability to win and act on new political access and rights.
- Support from international actors to women’s political participation is limited by bureaucratic constraints, conflicting priorities and the difficulties of working in transitional settings.
- But innovative practices have facilitated women’s political access and influence, and donors can learn from these experiences.
Recommendations for policy and practice:
To facilitate women’s empowerment, donors must work on the premise that this is a political agenda, in both objective and means – and one that must be led by domestic actors and processes.
Reclaim the normative agenda: Gender equality is an inherently normative and political objective that requires explicit support. Legal entitlements and political commitments, including the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), women’s statutory rights and UNSCR 1325, are often an important basis for engagement in national and regional political processes and dialogues. A focus on women’s equality and rights reduces the risk that bureaucratic or other competing interests will appropriate gender objectives and strip them of transformational content.
Focus on what works in practice: Pragmatism is needed to identify how best to advance normative objectives at the national level. Normative and political ends can only be achieved through political actions addressing power relations. Gender advocates must have an appreciation of the ideology and interests of different actors, and of the strategies that have been more and less effective under different conditions in generating incremental shifts in the structural and institutional constraints to women’s empowerment. Evidence on what works in practice does exist and it should be used more proactively.
Support strategic alliances and coalitions: Support to women movements is known to be effective so long as gender advocates do not operate in isolation and are able to build alliances in different spheres (political society, professional networks, activists, private sector leaders, etc.). It is often such capacity for collective action that can create incremental and progressive policy reform and changes in social norms. Building strategic alliances and coalitions requires a combination of sound political and negotiation skills, and an in-depth knowledge of the context, as well as the capacity to engage and adapt strategically to opportunities as they arise.
Think big, programme small: Women’s participation and leadership in peace and security processes is an ambitious and long-term political project. This should not translate into ambitious and unrealistic programmes and projects, however. If support for women’s political participation is to be more realistic, there is a need to strengthen the theories of change that underpin programmatic efforts. International and bi-lateral agencies need to recognise the limits of their potential influence in what are domestic political processes and work out their comparative advantage. International agencies such as UN Women, for example, should prioritise flexible and adaptive support for well-connected and locally grounded organisations at country level. Donor reporting requirements must facilitate rather than hamper local innovation, not least to capture effective processes, as well as outcomes.
The research suggests that there is a clear role for donors in supporting women’s political participation, if they work with the grain of domestic realities. This will require international agencies to move away from ‘business as usual’ approaches and focus on what evidence shows to be more effective ways of working.