Pathways
Women and Local Governance in Sierra Leone
2007 - Present
Lead Researcher: Hussainatu J Abdullah
This study aimed to illuminate the pathways of women's political empowerment, the relationship between political participation and change and interrogate the effectiveness of the decentralisation commission in empowering women in Sierra Leone.
Resources For This Project
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Women And Politics In Post-War Sierra Leone (2002-2011) (Case Study)
In this policy brief Hussainatu J. Abdullah discusses the effect on Sierra Leonean women of a series of transformatory policies to rebuild the economy and to advance social and gender relations (including the reinstitution of local governance and holding of national elections) after Sierra Leone's 11 year civil war, from January 2002. The objective of Abdullah’s research was to assess the implementation of the government’s gender equality and mainstreaming framework in the arena of politics and public sector governance. Recommendations for increasing Sierra Leonean women’s political participation are given. …
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Women And Politics In Post-War Sierra Leone (2002-2011) (Policy Brief)
As part of its post-war reconstruction and peace consolidation efforts, the Government of Sierra Leone has noted in all its policy documents that gender equality is a cross-cutting issue and will be included in all government policies, programmes and projects across all sectors of society. The objective of this research was to assess the government’s gender equality and mainstreaming framework in the arena of politics and public sector governance. The author found that despite the government’s policy initiatives, women’s political empowerment within the structures of government were unsatisfactory. However, Women have continued to actively engage the state and political parties to increase their numbers in government. …
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Women And Politics In Post-War Sierra Leone (2002-2011) (Report)
The objective of this study was to assess the implementation of the government’s gender equality and mainstreaming framework in the arena of politics and public sector governance. The paper discusses: election results and post-war changes in female participation and political representation; Affirmative Action policies; the effect of the women’s movement on women’s political representation; the electioneering process. The paper concludes that opportunities created by the post-war moment have opened up the male-dominated political arena to female politicians, in spite of threats of violence including rape and intimidation, and women have moved ahead to claim their space however small, through articulated demands for inclusion in governance. This increase is shown to be more of their own making as individuals and as a coalition than of a political will from a male-dominated system of governance. …
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Women In Local Governance In Post-Conflict Sierra Leone
This paper is a critical examination of the implementation of the government’s gender equality framework to its decentralization programme. It is argued that the practice of local governance in post-war Sierra Leone which, is far below the Beijing minimum of 30 per cent, rather than leave women disillusioned, has spurred them on to actively engage the state, political parties and the National Electoral Commission to demand a legislative quota to enhance women’s participation and a conducive political atmosphere to level the playing field for women in local governance. …
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Women's Voices, Work And Bodily Integrity In Pre-Conflict, Conflict And Post-Conflict Reconstruction Processes In Sierra Leone (Report)
A summary of the changes that have taken place in Sierra Leonean women’s lives in the last 20 years in the three thematic research areas of voice and participation, work and access to resources, and bodily integrity entails a situation analysis of women’s pre-conflict, conflict and post-conflict reconstruction activities in these fields. This is because the primary defining feature of the period 1986-2006 is the civil war years of 1991-2002. Armed conflicts, whether inter or intra state, leave behind not only human carnage, massive destruction of physical and socio-economic infrastructure (the Sierra Leone civil war was no exception to this reality), but also at the political level a weak and collapsed state. At the socio-cultural level, war also destroys the patriarchal structures of society like morals, traditions, customs and community, that confine and degrade women and opens up and creates new beginnings. …
