Source: Make Every Woman Count (MEWC)
This report seeks to provide an overview of the role of women in elections across Africa in 2011 by covering the position of female candidates before and after the elections have taken place; it is one of the first election monitoring projects in the field focused solely on the women’s political participation.

Our aim in this report is to provide an analysis of women’s participation in African politics, incorporating primary and secondary sources to reveal achievements and obstacles to women’s political empowerment. We aim to provide a platform for feminist views and voices of parties and voters on the ground. The first objective is to provide an easy to use tool to follow the role of women in elections across Africa by covering the female candidates before and after the elections have taken place.

The accessibility of current and reliable data on women’s political participation, access to leadership is even more difficult to find and compile. Without this information it is difficult to construct an objective view and analyses to interpret women’s political participation. By providing this data in an accessible, easy to read framework, MEWC hopes to maintain an information gateway for researchers, policy makers, students, women’s organizations and local voters.

In the long run, the objective of the project is to provide a platform for female voters and candidates to express their views and ideas, raise their political profile as well as possibly engaging with the Pan-African women’s movement via MEWC. MEWC also hopes to provide a platform to female candidates and women-led political parties to share their experiences with our readers, policymakers, politicians and other women organizations. By sharing these lessons MEWC hopes to contribute to improving women’s access to information, encourage communication and highlight the prevailing obstacles that prevent gender parity of leadership and political representation.

 

To read the full report, please click here