Question: What are the best practices and comparative experiences on establishing women's wings/sections within political parties, including their action plans and mandates? And, what is the best way to communicate such experiences to political parties?

Case Study Sweden: The Social Democratic Party:

There are seven main political parties in Sweden. Out of the seven parties all but two have a women's branch. The Social Democratic women's branch was founded in 1920. The branch exists of 300 local women's clubs throughout the country. They are working with political issues on the local level,
influence and form opinions through organizing debates and seminars and take part in the international cooperation within the Social Democratic movement. One important task for the clubs is to conduct training for women in organizational and political questions. Several women's clubs form a women's district. In total there are 26 women's districts of the Social Democratic Party in Sweden. Districts support the women's clubs in training and policy formulation. The district board consists of active members of the women's clubs and board members are elected at an annual district meeting. Above the district level is the nation level; meetings at national level are taking place every second year. 100representativesfromthe district levels meet and take decisions on the forthcoming political agenda and assess the work conducted over the last couple of years. Furthermore, a new board is chosen at these meetings. The national women's branch lobbies at the national level for issues that have been agreed upon during the meetings. The women's wings are funded through membership fees, contribution from the Social Democratic Party and state funding.

Recommendations:
Looking to political party organization and structure it is important to note that "one size does not fit all", What works well in one party does not necessarily function in another.

Party politics is all about processes and in order to form a women's wing, a process should be followed. This can be done in various ways either it is the top-down approach were the party leadership sees the need for a new branch/ wing within the party, or it is a bottom up approach where the roots are mobilized first. The first thing when setting up a women's wing, in either of the two cases, would be to invite party members to start discussing the need and the reasoning behind the creation of a women's wing. Those discussions can then be formulated into a concept paper or action plan to document the where the aim and the structure of the planned
women's wing.

To institutionalize the women's wing, approval the party leadership and the party itself is needed. It is very important that the idea is introduced at a suitable timing within the political party year, which differs within parties. This could be done through a formal or an informal meeting with party leaders, at a bigger party meeting or through informal contacts with influential persons within the party. Preferably, a concept paper is circulated before a formal board meeting where it is included in the agenda to ensure proper attention and increase the likelihood for approval.

In collaboration with the party leadership it is important to determine the legal aspects of the women's wing. How it will function and how it is structured from central to local level, are questions to be addressed. How shall the board of the women's wing be elected? Will membership in the women's wing be automatic/compulsory for female party members? Those are further matters of discussion. To ensure that the work of the women's wing is also influencing the party as a whole, the presence of the head of the women's wing in the party's highest decision making body is an advantage.

Structural matters should be written down in either a chapter of the party law of internal functioning or in a by-law to the party constitution. The importance of active women's clubs/wings at local level needs to be stressed, while the structure and legal framework must come from the party leadership, the commitment, interest and involvement should be seen on all levels.

Discussions on including women are best taken forward together with discussions on the inclusion of other marginalized social groups in society. Hence, it is important that discussions on gender are not raised in an isolated manner but undertaken in the context of raising the
participation and stake-holding of socially marginalized groups in general on how they can be better represented within political parties.

This expert response was submitted by James Gomez, Programme Officer for Political Parties, International IDEA