Formal and Informal Gender Quotas in State-Building: The Case of the Sahara Arab Democratic Republic

In the last fifteen years peacebuilding and gender sensitive approaches have been promoted in order to restore some form of stability in places emerging from conflicts. Recent literature on armed conflicts, women and peacebuilding claims that the international community has still not given sufficient attention to the means by which women’s participation could be enhanced, but the recent introduction of gender quotas system in many post-conflict countries, seems to succeed in elevating political representation of women. Saharawi refugee women, during the latest parliamentarian election in February 2008, increased their representation to over 30%. The introduction of women quotas at province level was the base for this success.