CLGF is committed to supporting women to play a full and active role in public life, particularly with regard to equal representation in local governance. This is in line with SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

To progress this objective in a practical way, CLGF has launched the Commonwealth Women in Local Government Network (CWinLG).  Working towards achieving this SDG and Commonwealth target over the period 2015-2030, CWinLG will focus on four areas:

• Working with existing elected women - to build the capacity of existing women leaders and help them overcome barriers within local government systems to be more effective as leaders, representatives and decision-makers.
• Working with prospective elected women - to engage at community level to increase understanding of the roles and responsibilities of local elected people and encourage women (with a focus on young women) to run for council.
• Working with political parties and LGAs - to remove barriers to women within political systems; work with CLGF members to increase the awareness and ability of elected leaders to include gender perspective in all aspects of their work (legislation, oversight and representation); and improve gender sensitivity in local governments and LGAs
• Working at the Commonwealth and International level - to gather best practice and share and replicates successes; advocate towards Commonwealth bodies to increase women’s representation and strengthen systems of inclusion and gender mainstreaming; monitor levels of elected women across the commonwealth; and feed into the SDG 5.5.1 monitoring process, ensuring CLGF meets its commitments on gender and inclusion