Bringing women into local governance: a review of enabling mechanisms in South Africa

This article assesses South Africa's progress in establishing a constitutional and legislative framework for engaging women in the process of building a participatory democracy. While much analysis and reflection to date has focused on the effectiveness and deficiencies of participatory mechanisms in connecting citizens' voices with state decision-making, there has been relatively limited examination of whether the current participation mechanisms accommodate equity issues by enabling marginalized or vulnerable groups, and women living in poverty in particular, to participate in governance. This paper seeks to address this gap and argues that while some positive steps towards gender awareness planning and participation have been achieved, particularly at local level, poor women have been largely excluded from meaningful engagement in decision-making processes. The article argues for a new approach with specific recommendations and proposed further research to ensure women's increased agency in the democratic process.