Win With Women: Building Inclusive 21st Century Parties
Win With Women: Building Inclusive 21st Century Parties

The Win With Women Political Party Assessment (WWW Assessment) is an initiative designed to help political parties become more inclusive and representative through an assessment that gauges men and women's perceptions of women in leadership, the types of social norms held by members of parties, and the individual, institutional and socio-cultural barriers to gender equality.

NDI's research and experience have shown that there is a limit to the degree that capacity-building of individuals and even mandated institutional reforms can disrupt the imbalances of power between men and women in a society and its institutions. This indicates that if significant numbers of women are to progress in politics, changes need to occur at the individual, institutional and socio-cultural levels. Through new tools and questions, the updated WWW Assessment enables political parties to gauge the existing barriers to the full achievement of gender equality.

The WWW Assessment includes interview, focus groups and survey tools that assess men and women’s perceptions of and attitudes towards women in public leadership, as well as how the ideologies of members and leaders influence party culture. Recognizing that parties are organizational structures that can only increase gender equality through organizational change, the assessment now offers strategies for achieving systemic change, including securing leadership buy-in for a process of party transformation.

History of Win with Women

In 2003, NDI published the Win With Women: Global Action Plan. This plan provided practical recommendations to help political parties broaden their appeal by becoming more inclusive and representative. Since then, the accompanying Win With Women Political Party Assessment has been used by more than 100 political parties globally, a testament to the continuing importance of political parties and the need for their reform. Political parties play a crucial role in democratic politics, providing citizens with a means to exercise their fundamental rights to inform policy debates and become political decision-makers. The updated WWW Assessment is informed by NDI’s 2017 review of political party strengthening, Reflect, Reform, Re-engage: A Blueprint for 21st Century Parties, which presented inclusion as one of the three areas that citizens care about in their political parties. The WWW Assessment continues to provide a platform for internal dialogue to take place between women and men members of a political party on the issue of political party reform. The Win With Women Assessment also reflects the increased recognition that violence against politically active women has a chilling impact on women’s political leadership ambitions, providing tools and guidance necessary to undertake a detailed examination of how violence – and the acceptance of such violence – impacts women’s status and their ability, confidence, and desire to participate in parties.

Resources

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