Three concepts that guide our Governance work

1. Shifting perceptions of women from beneficiaries to citizen problem-solvers

Development policies and programs impacting the lives of women living in poor communities tend to see women as beneficiaries. Far from being passive beneficiaries waiting for state handouts, grassroots women are continually organizing to find innovative solutions to their everyday problems of housing, healthcare, childcare, education, livelihoods, water supply and sanitation. Furthermore grassroots women's groups are also demonstrating ways in which they can transfer and scale up effective practices through community to community learning exchanges. At these exchanges, women are shifting their roles from mere recipients of training to knowledge generators, disseminators and trainers. A key element of grassroots women's approach to governance is to reposition women as citizens, problem-solvers and collaborators in the eyes of all development actors.

2. Change women's advocacy identities from adversaries to allies

Decentralization processes and economic restructuring have dramatically increased the roles and responsibilities of local governments without providing adequate resources to realize them. Thus demands by citizens can lead to hostility or disengagement between government and civil society actors.
Grassroots women are innovating a unique way of driving good governance. While demanding accountability and effectiveness from government through civic education and constituency building, women are also collaborating with government actors to enable effective outreach and delivery of services to the poor. In short, grassroots women are not just demanding good governance they are also partnering with government actors to demonstrate viable, practical ways to meet the demand.

3. Reconfigure power relationships

Institutional reform is less effective when external ‘experts' redesign administrative and management systems. This approach displaces the issue that good governance is built around people Democratic institutional reform requires addressing the human dimension: the redistribution and sharing of power with citizens, across class and gender.
Marginalization and social exclusion have required grassroots women's groups to empower themselves when engaging with governing institutions They negotiate their interests and priorities and reconfigure power equations by changing how local development is implemented. Huairou is helping them to acquire skills, knowledge and assets, expanding their social capital through citizens' platforms and networks, and build alliances with institutional actors. Through these strategies, grassroots women are advancing their ability to influence govern institutions and change how decisions are made.

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Good governance requires women`s empowerment

Women have historically been excluded from decision-making processes and ensuring the participation of women in public debates has been widely recognized as crucial for building good governance. Women`s participation, however, means more than women in public office.

Good governance depends on empowering women to be aware of their role as bearers of rights, agents of development and informed citizens. Bringing women to the center stage of decision making implies integrating grassroots women`s ways of organizing, learning and deciding to governance spaces and institutions` policies.

Governance refers to decision-making by a range of interested people (or stakeholders) including those in positions of power and ordinary citizens. These decisions shape how public resources are allocated and whether serves take into account both women`s and men`s needs and interests. Good governance has been defined by different aspects, such as "participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive and under the rule of law." All these aspects point to "citizens' ability to claim entitlements through participation in public decision-making, the inclusion of people's needs and interests in policy, and the allocation of resources."

How can women include their needs and priorities in public decision-making if they don`t see themselves as complete citizens and social actors? How can female authorities represent grassroots women`s needs and priorities if they do not know their realities? How can poor women voice their solutions to community problems if governance mechanisms do not recognize their way of organizing?

Increasing the number of women involved in electoral processes has become the common sense to promote gender equality and good governance. The Huairou Commission, however, has advocated that a woman occupying traditionally male spaces at an increased rate does not automatically indicate that she would be able to ameliorate issues related to women's empowerment. Poor women have not been given the opportunity to have a voice even when more women are elected.

Poor women must be given the opportunity to identify and define their roles as informed citizens against internalized beliefs that women are not able to decide by their own. At the same time, political authorities lack local and grassroots knowledge which is essential to improve any social reality. Policies to eradicate poverty, empower women and promote gender equality must integrate professional knowledge to grassroots knowledge. Development also depends on community views of problems that have been treated in international, national and local policies as an individual problem. Women organize and mobilize together when they realize that they are capable of changing their lives.

To facilitate a truely engendered form of governance, more women need to be brought into the government and the local government must involve the community, particularly women`s groups in all aspects and stages of development. The indicators of good governance, however, can't be measured only by numbers.

Inclusive governance requires that:

• Women are able to individually and collectively take part in decision-making processes that shape their societies and their own lives;
• Women are recognized by their community as leaders in community matters;
• Women feel informed and up to date on development processes in their community and can claim space and participate meaningfully in the process;
• Notable collaboration amongst grassroots women and traditional/local government authorities;
• Government authorities and other governance actors recognize grassroots women expertise over their community`s problems
• Government authorities and other governance actors promote grassroots women`s views, making the solutions presented by them visible