Report - Promoting gender equality: European rhetoric in view of the facts

04/12/2019 - Report - (EN)
DRC, European Union, Rwanda; Inclusive political participation & Human Rights

Challenges and lessons learned for transformative European support for women’s political and civic participation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. 
Gender equality and women’s full enjoyment of their human rights in the same way as men is essential to the full realisation of equitable and sustainable development. As such, the European Union (EU) and many European countries promote gender equality as one of their priority objectives for cooperation. Building on the strong strategic commitments made by both the EU and some European states, the European Network for Central Africa (EurAc) wishes to look at how these European political commitments were actually implemented in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
In that framework, EurAc focusses on the strategies and actions undertaken by the EU, Switzerland, France and Belgium in the domain of enhancing the political and civic participation of women and their participation in decision-making bodies at all levels. This analysis is based on the situation of the political and civic participation of women in the DRC and Rwanda, the main challenges in the domain, as well as the strategies and programmes implemented by the European donors (in particular the EU, France, Switzerland and Belgium). It proposes concrete actions and recommendations for the implementation of a truly transformative approach and aims to advocate for a better recognition of deeply rooted societal norms and practices in which gender inequalities in political and civic participation are entrenched.