Representation and influence of women in local politics

Six Danish parties have gathered in a multiparty project, working across different countries in the world to increase women’s representation and influence in local politics. The partnership is working specifically with Sustainable Development Goal 5, “Gender Equality," through target 5.5, “Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life." This is based on the general fact that women are significantly underrepresented in decision-making organs worldwide and do not have the same opportunities as men when running for office and trying to speak up.

The underrepresentation of women in local politics is often caused by strongly rooted gender norms, where men are perceived as being more suitable for office, thus receiving more votes from both men and women. Many countries in the world still have traditional gender norms, in which women are expected to perform a majority of domestic labour. This unpaid labour that women are expected to fulfil results in them having comparatively fewer resources to run as candidates in elections than men.

Strong norms concerning the role of women and men in society also contribute to the fact that women are not as often nominated to be candidates, and when they are, they are not elected as lead candidates. Women also suffer from being more likely to be the subject of harassment of any kind. Party membership is crucial in addressing these issues and plays a huge role in formulating policies that can address these obstacles.

Partnership between six Danish parties

The multiparty partnership between six Danish parties and their partner organisations represents a unique opportunity for a partnership that is based on reciprocity and mutual learning. The difficulties that women face in local politics are common across all types of democracies. In this approach, all involved partners are expected to work to increase gender equality within their own organisations.

The project is distinctive in its modality. Where the multiparty partnerships DIPD engages in usually involve multiple Danish parties going together with a single partner in a country, this is a project that runs across the lines of party-to-party partnerships.

As part of the partnership, a team of facilitators from the six participating Danish political parties has been trained by OSCE to conduct gender audits with the partnering political parties and develop gender audit guidelines with the parties. All involved partners will conduct gender audits. The audits enable the parties to develop strategies for increased representation and influence of women in the participating political parties and to increase the percentage of women running for local elections.  

There will be regular online meetings to disseminate information and share experiences. These meetings will also establish networks across party-to-party relations and provide inspiration from other parties’ methods and tools.

The innovation in this multiparty project is to develop equal partnerships where all parties involved will work towards the same goal. As an integrated part of the project, the Danish political parties and political parties from the partner countries will inspire, challenge, and learn from each other on a common goal to promote women’s representation and influence within the political parties. All this will hopefully make political decision-making more equal and secure for women to participate in and influence.