Democratization

Introduction

As for other countries in Southeast Asia, the participation of Cambodian women both in political institutions as well as in non-formal bodies of political representation is limited. This male bias merges with a rural-urban divide that creates immense disadvantages for women in rural areas, who constitute the majority of the population. Therefore the Cambodia Gender program is formulated around two main objectives:

• Contribute to the development of a gender discourse at the national level, in order to drive initiatives
  and shape a genuine national gender democracy perspective. This involves developing
  new research approaches in order to reveal gender biases and create a critical perspective.
  
• Support rural women’s participation in politics through the development of grassroots forms of
   representation, and increase their capacity to push their own agenda for emancipation and improvement.

The Cambodia program aims at highlighting the intersection of gender with:

• Ethnicity, as the target areas for rural women’s political participation in the Northeast of Cambodia
  are inhabited by several different indigenous groups;
  
• Environment, as women are the primary actors in agriculture and play a key role in the management of natural resources.