African Women’s Movements - Transforming Political Landscapes - The Rise of the New Women’s Movements

Sep 18, 2026

Women’s movements reshaped African politics after the 1990s, with women claiming a growing share of parliamentary seats across countries including Burundi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. The book analyzes why these advances accelerated, tracing the roles of autonomous women’s organizations, shifts in international and regional norms on rights and representation, access to new resources, and the end of civil conflict. It examines Cameroon, Mozambique, and Uganda, linking scholarly and activist leadership to concrete political change.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages281

Reading Time11 h 48 min

AccessFree to download

List of Tables

Acronyms

Preface

Introduction

Historic Influences on Contemporary Women’s Movements

The Rise of the New Women’s Movements

The Challenge of New Women’s Movements

Women’s Movements and Constitutional and Legislative Challenges

In Pursuit of Equal Political Representation

Engendering the State Bureaucracy

Women’s Movements Negotiating Peace

African Women’s Movements and the World

Bibliography

Index

This page intentionally left blank African Women’s Movements Women burst onto the political scene in Africa after the 1990s, claiming more than one-third of the parliamentary seats in countries such as Burundi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. Women in Rwanda hold the highest percentage of legislative seats in the world. Women’s movements lobbied for constitutional reforms and new legislation to expand women’s rights. This book examines the convergence of factors behind these dramatic developments, including the emergence of autonomous women’s movements, changes in international and regional norms regarding women’s rights and representation, the availability of new resources to advance women’s status, and the end of civil conﬂict. The book focuses on the cases of Cameroon, Mozambique, and Uganda, situating these countries in the broader African context. The authors provide a fascinating analysis of the way in which women are transforming the political landscape in Africa by bringing to bear their unique perspectives as scholars who have also been parliamentarians, transnational activists, and leaders in these movements. Aili Mari Tripp is Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her publications include Changing the Rules: The Politics of Liberalization and the Urban Informal Economy in Tanzania ( 1997), Women and Politics in Uganda (2000), several coedited volumes, and numerous scholarly articles. Women and Politics in Uganda won the 2001 Victoria Schuck Award of the American Political Science Association for best book on women and politics in 2000 and a 2001 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award. Isabel Casimiro is the coordinator of the Department of Women and Gender Studies at the Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique. She also coordinates the Woman’s Program at the university’s Center of African Studies and was formerly a member of parliament in Mozambique. She is author of Paz na Terra, Guerra em Casa: Feminismo e Organizac¸ es de Mulheres em Moambique (2004) and other works related to the women’s movement in Mozambique. Joy Kwesiga is Vice Chancellor of Kabale University and former Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Makerere University. She is the author of Women’s Access to Higher Education in Africa: Uganda’s Experience (2002), and she coedited The Women’s Movement in Uganda (2002) with Aili Tripp. Kwesiga was also a founding member of one of the leading women’s rights organizations in Uganda, Action for Development (ACFODE) . Alice Mungwa is Senior Political Affairs Ofﬁcer of the African Union Observer Mission to the United Nations. Prior to that, she served as Senior Political Ofﬁcer of the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Previously, Mungwa worked as a program ofﬁcer for gender and development with the Africa Leadership Forum in Nigeria and with a Cameroonian women’s nongovernmental organization. African Women’s Movements Transforming Political Landscapes AILI MARI TRIPP ISABEL CASIMIRO JOY KWESIGA ALICE MUNGWA CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York [www.cambridge.org](www.cambridge.org) Information on this [title: www.cambridge.org/9780521879309](title: www.cambridge.org/9780521879309) © Aili Mari Tripp, Isabel Casimiro, Joy Kwesiga, and Alice Mungwa 2009 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format ISBN-13 978-0-511-47901-4 ISBN-13 978-0-521-87930-9 ISBN-13 978-0-521-70490-8 2009 eBook (EBL) hardback paperback Cambridge Universi

FAQs

What political shifts does the book describe for African women after the 1990s?

Women’s movements gained major political ground, including increased representation in parliamentary seats in multiple African countries. The book highlights how these developments transformed political participation and influence.

Which factors does the book use to explain the dramatic advances in women’s rights and representation?

It links change to autonomous women’s movements, evolving international and regional norms on women’s rights, new resources to advance women’s status, and the end of civil conflict.

Which countries receive focused case study treatment?

The book focuses on Cameroon, Mozambique, and Uganda, while situating these cases in a broader African context.

Sep 18, 2026

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