Background Document - Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy

WOMEN IN TRANSITION
COUNTRIES
Struggling for their fair share of opportunities
BY RUMBIDZAI KANDAWASVIKA, ZIMBABWE
One major issue that persists throughout the world is that women’s
physical presence and voices in the decision making during political
transitions to democracy remain weak and almost non-existent.
Though women participate visibly and actively in revolutionary transitions,
their participation does not always guarantee women’s inclusion
in the decision making in transitional processes and structures.
Consequently, securing any meaningful participation and representation
of women in countries in transition is an on-going democratic
challenge.
It can be argued that the unfinished business of political transitions
is the inclusion and representation of women in transitional decision
making processes and the transitions are largely “unfinished transitions”.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rumbidzai Kandawasvika-Nhundu is the Senior Programme Manager responsible for the Global
Programme on Democracy and Gender at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral
Assistance (International IDEA) in Stockholm, Sweden. She is a gender equality advocate and
practitioner, with more than twenty years of hands-on professional experience on gender equality
and women’s empowerment initiatives at national, regional and international levels. She has
worked with capacity building and gender mainstreaming in parliaments, intra-party democracy
processes, management of electoral processes from a gender perspective and transformative leadership
strategies for women in politics.
ABOUT THE PHOTO
Maliha Ahmadzia, a 25 year-old law and political science student at Mawlana University in Balkh
province, who was running for parliament poses for a photo a day before the parliamentary election
September 17, 2010 in Mazar-e-sharif, Afghanistan. About 2,500 candidates contested the
249 seats in Afghanistan’s lower house of parliament. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images).
WOMEN IN POLITICS DANISH INSTITUTE FOR PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY PAGE 37