Creating Voice and Carving Space

Redefining Governance from a Gender Perspective

By: Mukhopadhyay M & Meer S
Published by: Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) 2004

This book is based upon the premise that while politics and power play a central role in decisions governing the lives of many women in developing countries, international development agencies supporting the good governance agenda in the 1990s largely failed to acknowledge this in their approaches. The authors counter that starved of resources and isolated from the arena of politics, these machineries have had little influence on policy making.

The book focuses on sixteen organisation's initiatives across eight countries in Africa and South Asia. The organisations shared a strategy to negotiate and bargain with the state for recognition, rights, and resources and more equitable sharing of power between women and men. They each investigated how women among marginalised groups could be enabled to stake their claim to participation in governance, and how to create accountability of governance institutions to poor women’s interests and rights. The objectives of the programme were to explore what constitutes good governance and inclusive citizenship from a gender perspective and to identify strategies to promote gender equality in governance and enhance citizen participation. Chapters are devoted to a variety of topics, including:

• Creating voice and carving space
• Women’s political representation
• Increasing responsiveness and accountability of governance institutions
• Citizenship

Each chapter also includes a variety of case studies.