Women-Gov is a feminist action-research project that attempts to understand the promise that digital technologies offer,for deepening local democracy. This project attempts to explore multi-pronged ICT strategies that can enhance women's participation in local governance, and enable the emergence of a strong political constituency of women; across three sites in India, Brazil and South Africa,over a two year time frame(March 2012-March 2014). The partnering organisations are IT for Change in India, Instituto Nupef in Brazil and University of the Western Cape in South Africa.

The primary question that the project addresses is: how can digital technologies be suitably employed to create participatory models in governance such that they enable socially and economically marginalised women in local contexts, gain centre stage? To this end, in each of the sites, the partnering organisations will work with marginalised women's collectives/organisations at the grassroots level, for exploring the possibilities offered by digital technologies; for facilitating women's political mobilisation, their active engagement with governance structures, and their collective articulation and negotiation of interests.

Women-Gov is supported by the Governance,Security,Justice Programme of IDRC. Click here to read the project proposal