Women’s Political Leadership programme - Phase II

Women’s Political Leadership programme - Phase II

In the second phase of the programme WFD will continue to work towards improving equality in political leadership for diverse groups of women in Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, and Thailand.
A speaker addressing the audience in a seminar
31 August 2025
Location
Indonesia
Laos
Malaysia
Thailand
Theme
Women's political leadership

This programme has been working to advance equality in politics and wider society across the ASEAN region (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) by making it easier for politically active women to participate in local, regional and national politics and to become political leaders. We want to enable an environment where there are more women in politics, where women in politics are better protected from violence, and where women’s issues are better addressed in law and policy.

Aims and activities (Phase II)

  • Establish a systematic data collection on VAWP through a gender observatory. 
  • Connect women political leaders to foster ongoing learning and advocacy on VAWP. 
  • Facilitate connections among practitioners, researchers, and experts on economic inclusion for women political leaders. 
  • Encourage stakeholders to commit to creating an enabling environment and a more equal platform for women political leaders. 
  • Foster regional collaboration to enhance knowledge sharing.

Target groups

Women political leaders

We will:

  • Engage them to address the experience of VAWP and its impact on political participation.
  • Support political inclusion fellowship activity and cross-country peer-learning for women political leaders and women caucuses.
  • Address VAWP (including economic barriers and online disinformation) with key stakeholders e.g. political parties, electoral management bodies, media, and tech platforms.  
Parliament, political parties, and election management bodies

We will:

  • Increase awareness of the existing forms, patterns, and impact of VAWP.
  • Introduce how to systematically record evidence of VAWP through a gender observatory approach.
  • Co-create a self-assessment tool on gender safety audits for parliaments and political parties.
  • Support the uptake of tools such as gender responsive budgeting, post-legislative scrutiny, gender sensitive parliament assessment etc.  
CSOs, media and tech platforms 

We will: 

  • Connect them with women political leaders to acknowledge and understand the existing forms, patterns, and impact of VAWP, online gendered-disinformation and AI for women’s political leadership.
  • Partner with them as allies for women political leaders (with wider support from CSOs including women’s rights organisations).  
Regional bodies and international organisations, such as AIPA, WAIPA, ACW, UNDP

We will: 

  • Support their work in addressing VAWP, reinforcing the importance of gender equality in politics.