ISSUES
Building on its work over 30 years to give women an equal voice in politics, NDI is now offering in one place comprehensive women’s program training materials and other resources organized by topic and available for download at www.ndi.org.
The new materials supplement the best practices and approaches outlined in the Institute’s 2011 guide, Democracy and the Challenge of Change: A Guide to Increasing Women’s Political Participation. The new information includes field research, practical exercises, presentations and handouts. The materials and tools are designed to increase the quality of training programs for women as they become voters, advocates, elections officials, political party members, candidates and lawmakers.
The materials include 14 modules that cover issues and skills that women often struggle with as a result of lack of formal political experience or informal barriers. These include campaign management, fundraising, political party participation, communications, management and leadership. Information on how to engage men as allies and use technology in politics are incorporated throughout.
Each module is organized into:
- A sample presentation and notes, easily adaptable to any audience;
- A trainer’s guide for the presentation;
- Handouts and exercises that can be adapted for individual audiences, contexts, knowledge levels and length of the training session; and
- Additional resources for the specific content area.
NDI has developed a corresponding training manual that outlines how to develop a training program for women, how to organize effective workshops and how to measure their effectiveness. The manual is based on NDI’s experiences globally as well as in-depth focus group research in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and Southern and East Africa.
Published Oct. 17, 2013
