Institutionalising gender equality: how local structures and women’s networks drive real change

This text was written by Valeria Guarneros Meza during her participation in ICLD’s Gender Equality Network conference in Barranquilla last November. It marked her final contribution as a member of the ICLD Advisory Board. We thank Valeria for her many years of commitment to local democracy and justice and wish her every success in the future.

In everyday life, we commonly associate institutions with the responsibilities conducted by the state or governments. However, in the ICLD Local Democracy Talk on the institutionalisation of gender equality, 20 November 2025, it was clear to me that civil society organisations (CSOs) and grassroots groups are increasingly changing the meaning of an institution. It is gradually shifting towards an understanding that goes beyond the competencies of the state to include the actions led by women’s networks.

Grassroots Networks and Institutionalisation in Colombia
Presentations by Elisa Arond and Marina López Sepúlveda showed how the act of institutionalising gender equality, alongside intersectionality, in Colombia has become a space in which networks of grassroots groups, CSOs, local government officers and academics contribute. These networks learn about each other and empower people through the sharing and learning of experiences.

Women Consultative Councils in Colombian Municipalities
Women consultative councils (consejos consultivos de la mujer) existing throughout Colombian municipalities are an example of such spaces. Although these councils were an initiative introduced by national law, each municipality has different ways of operating them. Dr. Arond’s research team has begun studying the case of Popayán municipality, south-east Colombia.

Local Context, Diversity and Feminisms in Popayán
Popayán’s history, racial relations and religion have been important factors in shaping and, at times, obstructing the development of the consultative council. Not only political and electoral reasons obstruct its continuous development, but also the diversity of the municipality’s population has been key in identifying different feminisms. This diversity offers approaches defined by ethnicity, disabilities, and gender and sexual orientations. These differences were not contemplated in the design of gender regulation; instead, they were brought to the fore by CSOs.

Memory, Conflict and Feminist Research in Atlántico
Dr. López Sepúlveda and her team conduct research on women, gender and culture in the Atlántico Department (north Colombia). They focus on articulating a wide range of social feminist collectives. Because of the conflict zone and violence against women that the region has experienced over the last five decades, the research team argues that the insurgent memory rescued and maintained by different feminisms is key to avoiding oblivion. If memory is lost, the work of women and LGBTQI+ people striving to construct peace, bring authorities to account and demand transparency from regional and local decision-makers would also be overlooked.

Spaces of Encounter and Everyday Institutionalisation
Women and LGBTQI+ collectives in Colombia come together in multiple spaces of encounter that push for the institutionalisation of gender and human rights. This institutionalisation is reflected in public policy but maintained on an everyday basis through dialogue and deliberation. These collectives are invited to encounter civil servants, local politicians and academics to make public policy a vehicle to transform their lives. These spaces are the materialisation in which these networks become visible and begin weaving relationships with the state.

Perspectives from Government Officers
Responding to the two academic presentations, three interventions followed by government officers from Sweden, Guatemala and Colombia. Annika Dalen* mentioned that, in contrast to Colombia, Swedish municipalities do not have women consultative councils. However, Umeå municipality tries to maintain 50–50 gender parity in its municipal council.

Lessons from Umeå Municipality
Umeå municipality has learned over decades of pursuing gender equality in politics and in citizens’ everyday lives that the hardest part is not getting women councillors elected, but the work that follows to break glass ceilings in the municipality’s processes. For example, holding municipal council meetings no later than 6 pm, and creating an all-party gender subcommittee charged with reviewing the gender impact of all political initiatives before these are put to a vote.

Institutionalisation in Guatemala City and Atlántico
Rocío Penados García** underlined that institutionalisation in the municipality of Guatemala City requires a mayor with a good understanding of the value and contribution that women generate, while having a clear vision of how to acknowledge women’s development. For María Lourdes Dávila Márquez***, the women consultative councils are vehicles that echo the needs of women while they scrutinise the work in the Atlántico Department. Women’s needs are increasingly recognised in this region as strongly interrelated with the elimination of male-dominated spaces, through the reduction of violence, high-quality education and housing, and economic independence.

Barriers to Institutionalisation
These government officers underlined barriers to institutionalisation, such as limited resources in relation to the complexity demanded by migration and ethnic diversity. Meanwhile, the academics addressed barriers related to diversity of understandings, lack of social leadership succession, and glass ceilings in employment, justice and health.

Voices from the Audience
At the end of the presentations, members of the audience were invited to join the panel. Two volunteers came forward: Diana Contreras, a social leader who, through entrepreneurial approaches, is innovating peasant women’s agricultural produce; and Maria Estela Sandoy, another social leader with an Indigenous and conflict-displaced background, who by developing small entrepreneurial skills has gained economic independence and confidence to participate in spaces promoting gender rights.

Networks, Interdependence and Institutional Change
I considered this invitation to the audience symbolic and significant. It showed how the institutionalisation of gender equality is formed by networks not only of international municipal partnerships between Sweden, Colombia and Guatemala, but also, and importantly, by social leaders and academics coming together.

Despite their diverse backgrounds, these women are interdependent. If one of them is absent from the process, it is more likely that the fabric of the network will break, thus making the institutionalisation of gender less likely to happen.

(*)Strategist in gender equality and development, Umeå Municipality, Sweden
(**)Social development director, Guatemala City Municipality, Guatemala
(***)Secretary of Women and Gender Equality, Atlántico Department, Colombia