engagement

Women particularly from poor or marginalized groups may have very limited capacity or confidence to engage in public life. Support for women’s capacity development is therefore critical and needs to be continuous, taking place at multiple levels recognizing the linkages between individual and collective empowerment. In the present case, while the Implementing Partner had undertaken some individual capacity initiatives, there is clear case that these efforts need to be continuous, consistent and carried over a longer period of time for impact.

Supporting government institutions in becoming gender responsive and inclusive requires substantial efforts in institutional capacity building through sensitization, training and equipping government officials with tools and skills to carry out gender responsive planning and governance. In the present project, while the project was successful in sensitizing local government officials, focused institutional capacity building could have contributed to a more impactful and sustainable change.

Citizen led accountability (CLA) monitoring is a particularly useful initiative to promote gender responsive local governance. However, institutionalizing it requires extensive capacity building of local communities to enable them to continue it independently. In the present case, while the project piloted a Citizens Report Card successfully by acquiring a consultant, the knowledge and skills transfer to the community for developing it independently and regularly would have made it locally driven and owned, as well as sustainable.

The project experience clearly indicates that in order to be impactful, the project design should involve multidimensional approaches that address both the practical and structural challenges, ranging from individual capacity gaps to overall gender discrimination and institutionalized exclusion, which constrain women’s voice, decision-making and leadership. In the present case, the Implementing Partner was successful in maintaining a dual focus on promoting women’s political participation through building women’s capacity and awareness of their rights and connecting them to key decision-making processes on the one hand and engaging with the Musahar community, particularly men, to address gender discrimination through sensitization sessions.

Connected support to enhance individual women’s capabilities and empowerment is important for women’s collective action. Support to build individual women’s leadership capacities is particularly important to build leadership skills and political capacities in order for them to work effectively with existing systems and political processes. In this case, while the Implementing Partner was successful in mobilizing and raising awareness for collective action among the Musahar women, focused support to build women’s capacities in communications and leadership would have further enhanced their ability to lead the women forums.

An effective way to address the structural barriers that marginalized women may face in accessing formal political space, is to start with building localized platforms and relevant capacities and gradually scaling up the effort to connect to formal institutional structures. In the present project, this was demonstrated successfully by the creation of the local Women Musahar Empowerment Forums which were eventually scaled up to district-level platforms as well as connected to the National Musahar Association.

As the project experience indicates, engaging a community representative organization like the National Musahar Association is an effective strategy to build trust and gain access to the community focused on by the project.

Women’s participation in political change processes not only enhances gender equality, but it also makes a positive contribution to local development outcomes. The present project experience clearly demonstrates the transformative impact of women’s inclusion in local development in the shape of a number of local needs-based infrastructure schemes undertaken by the Women Musahar Empowerment Forums in their Municipalities.

To ensure project sustainability and stakeholder ownership, it is vital to foster a comprehensive understanding of project outcomes among all stakeholders and to align project strategies with their mandates and constraints. In this project, the lack of ownership by the Electoral Boundaries Commission resulted in the Gender Responsive Electoral Guidelines not being adopted.