Central Questions:

• What was the nature of women's participation in building democracy pre- and post-1989?
• How did women's organisations contribute to bringing about a democratic society?
• What is the form of the women's movement today? How is it organised and funded? To what extent do organizations retain old communist structures and individuals but under new names? Does government consult with the women's movement? Are there links between the women's movement and elected women?
• What links does the women's movement have with similar groups in other candidate countries and EU member states? Are these links effective? What are barriers to establishing links and influencing the legislative agenda?
• On what issues is the women's movement campaigning? On what issues has it been successful? What are its priority issues today and what strategies does it use to influence decision making? Are these issues on the political agenda, and how are political decision makers responding to these issues?

Methodology: Each partner will identify a range of relevant people within the women's movement with an insight into one or more of the above questions. This will involve identifying leading women's NGOs and the issues on which they lobby, as well as significant women with a history of activism around feminism and democracy in the past but who may not be active today. Partners will conduct one-hour interviews to explore the questions as relevant.

Deliverables: Each partner will produce a report covering aspects of women's civic and political engagement, assessing women's activism, its successes, and the obstacles within the political framework that prevent it from achieving its goals. Each report will be published as journal articles and disseminated to relevant NGOs and government and equality-seeking organisations, and will also form the basis of a country-specific action-oriented strategy to bring greater effectiveness to women's campaigns. The co-ordinator will compile these country reports into a comparative report report for the EU, a journal article and/or book chapter.