Strategies to increase women's representation

This report, which I researched and wrote for the British Council, focuses on the strategies that have been used to improve levels of women's representation around the world.

The report starts by considering the barriers to women's representation. It then examines the different strategies used to tackle those barriers, looking at ways to increase the numbers of women forward and improve their ability to compete as well as how to encourage the electorate at selectors to choose women. Since high levels of women's representation are nearly always the result of some form of quota mechanism the report examines the use of quotas in detail. The final section examines the experience of women within parliament looking at strategies to increase the effectiveness of women once they are elected and the policies, practices and mechanisms used by women to ensure that policy making is sensitive to the needs of women in the wider community.

The report is based on interviews with women politicians and activists around the world and the outcomes of a series of international seminars organised by the British Council during 2002 and 2003. It focuses on real life experience of women politicians and would-be politicians and highlights the varied solutions that women wanting to enter politics around the world have to common problems.

The report provides a rich source of ideas and inspiration for activists working on women's leadership and participation in decision making and offers a comparative over-view of the challenges facing women politicians around the world.