Honduras ParticiPaz — Multi-Stakeholder Electoral Parity Programme Increasing Women in National Congress by Six Percentage Points (2020–2021)

Honduras enacted a 50/50 electoral parity law for candidate lists in 2012 (with implementing regulations in 2017), yet structural barriers — party gatekeeping, campaign finance gaps, and security risks — prevented women from capitalising on the legal framework. ParticiPaz (2020–2021), a joint programme of UN Women and the UN Peacebuilding Fund, addressed these gaps directly through political training, mentoring, and public-communication support for women pre-candidates across multiple departments.

Over its two-year cycle, ParticiPaz provided strategic communication and political-marketing support to more than 60 local women candidates. The programme worked with the Tribunal Supremo Electoral to monitor party compliance with parity rules and ran a national awareness campaign titled 'Politics has no gender, it has ideas', helping counter cultural barriers to women's candidacy.

In the November 2021 general elections, the programme contributed to a documented 6% increase in women elected to the National Congress, bringing the chamber to 27.3% women (approximately 35 of 128 seats), and a 45% increase in women's representation in municipal corporations — a particularly significant result as it demonstrated penetration beyond the capital into departments where women's political participation had previously been negligible. As of February 2024, women held 38.9% of seats in local deliberative bodies, reflecting a sustained trend.

Limitations: the 2021 result remained well short of the 50% parity target mandated by law; the programme was project-funded and its continuation post-2022 is uncertain; and structural party-level barriers to women's leadership have not been fully dismantled.

Read the full analysis: https://lac.unwomen.org/en/stories/noticia/2022/09/participaz-honduras-un-proyecto-a-favor-de-la-igualdad-y-la-participacion-politica-de-las-mujeres