mobilization

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.

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.

A multi-level approach that engages stakeholders from the grassroots level to the institutional level ensures consistency and has a higher chance of success in enhancing women’s political participation. In this case, the project engaged rural communities, traditional leaders, electoral management bodies, public institutions, and the government. This comprehensive engagement enabled a concerted effort to enhance women’s political participation in the subsequent elections.