Enhancing gender equality as a prerequisite for democracy: 2023 Summit for Democracy and beyond

International IDEA spearheaded the institutionalization of gender equality as a pillar of democracy by providing substantive technical support for the Summit for Democracy Cohort on Gender Equality. Romania, Sweden and the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security co-led the Cohort, while International IDEA supported the Cohort’s agenda-setting efforts by convening dialogues and stakeholder consultations to make recommendations for the Summit and beyond.

The Cohort’s initiatives leveraged International IDEA’s positioning as a global convener and its capacity to cross-fertilize its work on gender equality and women’s empowerment with International IDEA Member States and global partners.Governments and civil society from around the world—Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe and North America—engaged in the initiatives.

The Cohort on Gender Equality also developed five thematic policy briefs for the hosts of the Summit for Democracy (the Netherlands, South Korea, the USA and Zambia) on gender dimensions of the Summit’s focus areas—free, fair and transparent elections; anti-corruption; youth; media freedom; and information and communication technologies.