Research areas

Send Print Share

Archive / Working Paper

Strengthening Women's Citizenship: Sierra Leone

14/08/2008 By Clare Castillejo

Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images

There is currently great interest in citizenship within the development community. Strong citizenship has come to be seen as a vital ingredient for good governance and development, and strengthening the citizenship of poor people is viewed as a way to ensure their rights and participation in governance.

However, one of the biggest challenges is how to strengthen citizenship for women in developing countries. In many African countries women have little contact with the formal state and their lives are governed by customary governance systems that seriously limit their rights and opportunities for political participation. This is particularly true for women in fragile states, where the formal state is weak and inaccessible.

 CGG
Based on field research in Sierra Leone conducted by FRIDE and CGG, this Working Paper by Clare Castillejo examines how processes of post-conflict state-building have redrawn the boundaries of authority between the formal state and customary governance systems, and thereby provided new citizenship opportunities for women.

The paper explores the changes that are taking place in women’s rights, women’s political participation and women’s mobilisation in Sierra Leone, in the context of state-building. It also makes recommendations for how donors can support the strengthening of women’s citizenship within their support for state-building in Africa.


Download the full version of this publication, available in English (846 kB)
Spanish (855 kB)


Projects

Strengthening women's citizenship in the context of state building
To read or listen to the comments of our experts in the media about this and other topics, please visit our Press section.

Keywords

Development Gender Governance Human rights Institution building Justice Sierra Leone State building West Africa

Related publications

Bio author: Clare Castillejo

Civil society. Conflict. Development. Donors. Gender. Governance. Human rights. Inequality. Peacebuilding. Security.