Project profile — Democracy and Empowered Women

• Pakistan (100.00%)

• Elections:
Elections (15151) (22.00%)
Legislatures and political parties (15152) (26.00%)
Women's rights organisations and movements, and government institutions (15170) (52.00%)

• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (principal objective)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Youth Issues (significant objective)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (not targeted)
• Disability (significant objective)
• Children's issues (not targeted)
• Gender equality (principal objective)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Disaster Risk Reduction(DRR) (not targeted)
• Nutrition (not targeted)

The project’s goal is to enhance inclusive democratic processes for the advancement of women’s rights and at risk population, such as minorities and transgender communities in Pakistan. The project also aims to change the patterns of women's political and civic participation through changes in behaviors, practices and performance of key institutions to promote the participation of disenfranchised people (whose right to vote was removed) in community development, local governance and mainstream political decision-making processes. Project activities include: (1) providing training to women and youth for leadership in community and local government; (2) conducting voter education training sessions for women and youth groups, and for chapters of Awaz-e-Niswan (AAN), a membership-based network of women voters across the country; (3) providing support for the establishment of four AAN district chapters for meaningful engagement with State actors and non-State actors; (4) providing capacity building support in gender-responsive governance to new and existing networks of women in local government in 15 districts; (5) providing technical assistance (TA) and training to media on gender-sensitive reporting skills to support women’s political participation in 15 districts, given by elected representatives; (6) providing TA to women political party workers, and key leaders and legislators (women and men) to advocate for women’s empowerment within political parties and in parliament; and (7) providing TA to set up a “Parliamentary Watch” to track progress on gender-sensitive legislation and policy actions.

The expected results of this project include: (1) community-based groups of women and network of women voters amalgamated into a strong and dynamic network (expanding it to 25 districts); (2) improved skills of women and youth to engage with formal and informal decision making foras at district and sub-district levels; (3) increased evidence-based advocacy by women, youth and civil society organizations (CSOs) for advancing the rights of women, and marginalized and transgender persons; (4) networks of women voters’ capacity increased in order to expand political participation of women; (5) enhanced networking of women in local government for collective action and responsive governance; (6) increased capacity of women, youth groups and women councillors to develop gender-responsive community budgets and social accountability in 15 districts; and (7) improved participation and representation of women in mainstream political parties and in national and provincial parliaments.

Results achieved at the end of the project (March 2024) include: (1) trained 1,395 people (1,280 women, 73 men and 42 transgender persons) in leadership skills and voter education; (2) provided 16 seed grants to community-based organizations to advance the rights of women and other marginalized groups, benefitting 1,706 women, 93 men and 63 transgender persons; (3) trained 650 women local government leaders in gender-responsive governance; (4) trained 62 journalists (17 women and 45 men) in gender-sensitive reporting skills; and (5) supported 250,943 women to obtain their official identity documents and register as voters. These actions contributed to an increase in the percentage of women voters as a proportion of all voters in the project districts from 44.2% in 2018 to 46.2%.

• Proactive disclosure