Fostering the equal participation and representation of women and men in political decision making by developing and implementing national and European gender equality strategies.
For most of democracy’s history, women were not allowed to participate in politics as voters or candidates. This changed in the 19th century with the women’s suffrage movement, and by 2015 all countries had granted women the right to vote.
However, as of 2019, women only hold 24.3% of parliamentary seats globally, and political power for women is insufficient in Europe according to the Gender Equality Index.
Despite efforts to increase gender equality in politics, the political sphere remains a the challenge for women: women are underrepresented in political decision-making at all levels: regional, national and local government.
The project focuses on the equal participation and representation of women and men in political decision making.
Proposed activities:
1. Research based piece mapping National gender equality strategies to promoting equal representation of women and men in political decision making and the correlation between those strategies and voters’ behavior related to ender equality. Cross country comparison; countries higher vs lower in the equality index. Produce a scientific publication related to these findings.
2. Development of national strategies to promote equality between men and women in political decision making. These will be bespoke to both counties scoring higher or lower on the equality index. Emphasis will be given to sharing best practices, embedding robust Impact Measurement processes in order to quantify and track the succession of these strategies for each sector.
3. Engagement with local political parties national bodies related to gender equality to locally inject the findings of the research and translate into National policies. Using platforms such as public dialogues, conferences and round table discussions with related individuals.
4. Organize media strategies specifically to be utilized during key electoral moments.
