This article looks at the performance of the Women Component Plan (WCP) introduced at the local level in Kerala to encourage participatory planning by studying the experience of five village panchayats over a 10 year reference period. There has been a marked difference among projects carried out under the WCP and general sector projects and projects meant for Scheduled Castes in expenditure efficiency. The article also looks at the nature of projects implemented, the extent of participation of women members in their design and execution, and the opinion of elected representatives on the usefulness of the WCP.

This Framework outlines key considerations for developing a party’s gender policy, and addresses a variety of thematic areas essential for the advancement of women and promotion of gender equality within political parties, including leadership formation, internal decision making, internal oversight and institutional development, candidate recruitment, party programmes and platform development, outreach to voters, and campaigns.

Women are beginning to stand for elections and have won seats or held political office at different tiers of government in India and Bangladesh, but the numbers are still very low. These two countries have excelled in mainstreaming women in local governance structures. Following constitutional amendments to reserve one-third of all local government seats for women in India after the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution in 1992, more than one million women were elected to local government positions. Similarly, institutional reforms to reserve seats for women’s active participation in local governance in Bangladesh in 1997 resulted in many women councillors being elected. Despite various problems faced by women in both India and Bangladesh, reservation of seats for women in local bodies increased women’s visibility in public life and provided them with social legitimacy. Reservation of seats for women in local bodies has shown that women are increasingly playing an important role in social, economic, environmental, dispute resolution, legal and political areas. These in turn have an impact on democracy and development, which is the crux of this research study.

In 1994, women made up 49 per cent of the total registered voters of 8,652,252. Table 6 shows the number of registered voters in 1999. The 1999 election list indicates there has been a slight increase in women voters. Both the National Parliament and State Legislatures, share the common electorate list. Representatives for the Urban Councils are nominated members and women form less than 10 per cent of the total nominated members

This comparative report draws together a picture of women’s involvement in local government in the Asia and Pacific region. It is based on 13 country reports prepared for ESCAP and LOGOTRI and highlights continuing barriers to women’s involvement in local government, initiatives that have increased women’s participation and the transformative leadership that women provide in local government. It also outlines regional and country-level strategies for increasing women’s involvement in local government