Our aim with the monitoring of elections and political participation of women in Africa is to provide a deeper analysis, in the form of briefing papers that will incorporate primary sources: the views and voices of parties and voters on the ground. Through a table with statistical data, we will be specifically looking at the number of women (i) registered to vote, (ii) running as candidates, (iii) who are elected following the elections. Our analysis will also include an article on the gender specificities of the country where the election is taking place. We will be looking at the situation of women prior to the elections as well as the way that the elections impact the lives of women.

While the early 20th century saw queens ruling various African countries, notably Ethiopia and Swaziland, the early 1990s saw women appearing on the African political scene, notably in Liberia, Burundi and Rwanda with female presidents and prime ministers. We now hope that the second decade of this millennium will see the rise of true female political participation sweep through Africa, with an increased number of women taking part in the polls, being elected as candidates and playing a key role in shaping their own country’s future.

Objectives:

The  objective is to  provide an easy to use tool to follow the role of women in elections across Africa by covering the position of 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, analyze and interpret the position of women with regards to political participation. By providing this data in an accessible, easy to read framework (ie table) MEWC hopes to provide an information gateway to researchers, policy makers, students other women’s organizations and local voters...