Women's Political Participation

Photo: UN Women

Although Lebanese women gained the right to vote in 1952, and despite a vibrant feminist movement, women remain grossly under-represented in public and political life.

UN Women initiated work in support of Women's Political Participation prior to the 2018 parliamentary elections, and has since scaled up that support leading into the 2022 parliamentary and municipal elections. With the 2022 elections looming, UN Women and UNDP developed a joint action plan which aims at increasing the number of women represented in elected bodies, while taking into account findings and recommendations of lessons learned from the 2018 parliamentary elections.

As such, UN Women is working on a multi layered approach to supporting Women's Political Participation, including: 

1. Reforming thematic areas;
2. Raising awareness and providing voter education;
3. Providing technical support and capacity building to candidates and aspirants across electoral lists;
4. Engaging with the media for fair representation of women;
5. Responding to gender-based violence in politics and elections;
6. Mainstreaming gender across electoral management bodies and processes.

Grounding the work in a coordinated approach, UN Women is working with partners in Lebanon to build a common feminist vision for governance and electoral reform, with a view to engagement in support of women’s participation in the planned 2022 national and municipal elections. This is complimented by support to independent women’s rights organizations and to emerging political groups and established political parties on gender mainstreaming and women’s representation.

For a longer brief on the work we do in this area, please click here.