Bhutan Network for Empowering Women

Posted On: November 8th, 2022

Deeply entrenched gender-stereotyped social norms, attitudes, and mindsets continue to pose challenges for women to gain the confidence of society and be trusted as leaders. Bhutan Network for Empowering Women has taken on the mandate to strengthen the participation and representation of women in politics, leadership, and governance. To achieve this overall goal, building the leadership capacity of women leaders in local governance is one of the main focus areas. This is aimed at enhancing the confidence of women leaders to perform better in their communities along with increasing public confidence in women’s leadership.

Due to the large patriarchal form of leadership, women often find it intimidating to fulfill leadership roles, this is prominent, particularly directly after the elections. Women in local governments also tend to have less exposure when compared to their male counterparts mostly due to gender-stereotypical social settings. Through their effective performance as a leader, they will be able to gain public confidence in women leaders and pave way for young women in the communities. BNEW successfully managed to train about 106 women leaders from various local governments through leadership workshops under this project.