This project is part of the Gender, Power and Sexuality Programme, funded by Sida. The project is working on two parallel initiatives, firstly, exploring political empowerment programmes for women and secondly, engaging with the international community to challenge and expose gendered forms of violence, particularly when this is politically motivated.
Work on donor funded political empowerment programmes for women
This empirical work on political empowerment programmes draws on case studies from Ghana, Sierra Leone, Egypt, Sudan and India and aims to engage international policy-makers on women’s political empowerment (such as UN Women and Idea). Our work so far shows some striking similarities in the design, content and impact of political training programmes in the five countries explored. In the second half of the project, we will engage donors in testing out some of our assumptions by looking at a broader set of political empowerment programmes implemented globally and producing clear policy messages to be communicated to donors and international NGOs promoting women’s political empowerment.
Work on politically motivated forms of sexual assault
This developed as a responsive strategy of engaging the international community on the exposure of Egyptian women participating in protest spaces in politically motivated acts of sexual assault, which emerged from the pressing needs identified by local organizations, movements and coalitions in Egypt. The work on politically motivated sexual assault against women in Egypt in global platforms has contributed to exposing new gendered forms of violence in a context of extreme political volatility and challenging the misconceptions about the gendered nature of transitions.
Find out more about the research from this project and related work on Interactions, a new online resource presenting real time research on the empowerment of women and girls.
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