Women's political rights for democracy

The state of the exercise of women's rights is a barometre of the quality and effectiveness of democratic governance and systems in the Americas.

The Hemisphere faces major challenges to the purpose and functioning of State institutions and the very legitimacy of democracy as a system of governance that enables sustainable human development, peace, and the exercise of human rights.

To preserve this legitimacy, changes are needed in the approaches, perspectives, rules of the game, legal framework, structures, processes, institutional culture, management of money – and above all the State’s capacity to transform its people’s aspirations into public policies that guarantee their rights.

In this context, the CIM works in three key thematic areas: