Around the world, EMBs and other relevant stakeholders make efforts to promote gender equality and women’s participation at different stages of the electoral process, including the pre-electoral, the electoral and the post-electoral periods. EMBs in different countries have put in practice a number of gender-targeted interventions to promote the registration of women voters, including women-only registration teams, mobile registration and outreach campaigns. During the candidate nomination and registration stage, a number of TSM can be adopted to promote women’s representation, such as instating legislated quotas in the candidate lists and using public funding measures as an incentive for compliance with certain levels of representation of women in the lists, among others. EMBs, civil society and international organizations can contribute to launch civic and voter campaigns to promote women’s participation, by targeting women specifically or mainstreaming gender in outreach messages addressed to the general population. In certain countries, women leaders and candidates have participated in capacity building initiatives to improve their performance during the campaign and help them reach better electoral results. During the voting process, EMBs can adopt specific measures to promote gender equality and women’s participation, such as placing polling stations in accessible locations, establishing inclusive identification procedures, putting in place gender segregated voting mechanisms, fighting family voting and ensuring vote secrecy. Dispute resolution mechanisms should be accessible and clear to women candidates, integrate women into their structures and avoid gender discrimination.[1] Furthermore, all throughout the electoral cycle, EMBs, civil society organizations and other stakeholders in different countries follow strategies to promote effective participation of LGBTI persons.
One of the key publications on this topic is the UNDP and UN Women’s 2016 “Inclusive Electoral Processes: A Guide for Electoral Management Bodies on Promoting Gender Equality and Women’s Participation”, [2] which offers a general overview about what can be done to mainstream gender from the perspective of electoral management. With the purpose of illustrating strategies used by EMBs in different countries, examples of good practice can be found in this section, mostly selected from UNDP and UN Women’s 2016 guide.
Throughout the electoral cycle, EMBs, political parties, civil society organizations, electoral assistance providers and other relevant stakeholders can take action to promote women’s participation and gender equality. The following graphic resource depicts the electoral cycle, a visual planning and training tool to assist development agencies, electoral assistance providers and electoral officials to understand the cyclical nature of the various challenges faced in electoral processes. The electoral cycle was developed by UNDP, International IDEA and the European Commission as a response to obstacles to the implementation of long-term assistance in the field of elections. For more information on this topic, please see related content of the ACE Project, including:
[1] UNDP and UN Women (2016): “Inclusive Electoral Processes: A Guide for Electoral Management Bodies on Promoting Gender Equality and Women’s Participation”.
[2] Significant parts of this section have been adapted, with the permission of the publisher, from:
UNDP and UN Women (2016): “Inclusive Electoral Processes: A Guide for Electoral Management Bodies on Promoting Gender Equality and Women’s Participation”.
Main contributors: Julie Ballington, Gabrielle Bardall, Sonia Palmieri and Kate Sullivan.
