Women Constitution-Makers’ Dialogue

Through multi-day discussions, participants share lessons learned, exchange ideas, and identify comparative models and resources related to both process design, substance of a constitutional text, and implementation issues. These exchanges are supported by colleagues from the international practitioner community and academia who focus on comparative constitution-building, peacebuilding, democracy and democratic transitions, and gender and politics.

The Dialogue, the only peer-to-peer platform of its kind, represents a conceptual and practical response to documented needs for an organized, systematic, women-centered approach to constitution-building. In addition to peer-to-peer exchanges, the Dialogue supports the identification of common trends, key insights, and lessons learned for the future.

The outputs from the Dialogue enable international advisers, researchers and donors to better understand national reform processes from a comparative and gendered perspective; examine the ways in which constitution-building can contribute to enhanced social justice, democratization and sustainable peace; identify opportunities and obstacles to women’s participation and influence from both a country level and global perspective and to optimize the quality and availability of assistance provided to women constitution-makers across a range of contexts.

Participants over the years have included members of constitution-making bodies from Armenia, Barbados, Botswana, Chile, Egypt, Fiji, Kenya, Nepal, Palestine, the Philippines, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen, as well as civil society members who are actively engaged in constitution-building processes from numerous additional countries.

Partners: Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law (ECCL), PeaceRep (formerly PSRP), Global Justice Academy.

Founding Women: A dialogue with women constitution-makers

Participant perspectives from the first annual Women Constitution Makers Dialogue held in Edinburgh in October 2019. The event was organized by International IDEA and the Political Settlements Research Programme. The annual dialogue will serve as a network forum wherein women constitution-makers, peacebuilders, researchers and international advisors can examine country-level experiences, exchange ideas, and increase the visibility of women constitution makers globally.