Designing a Service for Women’s Political Participation
If politics feels inaccessible, participation never begins.
In partnership with Elect Her, I, along with a team of service designers, explored how to accelerate gender parity in UK politics by identifying where systemic intervention could be most effective. I examined barriers across societal, organisational, and individual levels to uncover gaps within the existing support ecosystem working to help women in politics. The outcome was EH Forums — a scalable service model designed to create an accessible, early-stage pathway into political participation for women.
Project Partner:
4 months, London
Tools & methods used: 1:1 interviews, literature reviews, co-creation workshops, theory of change, service blueprint, service audit, user jouney mapping
TL;DR
The Problem
Women remain underrepresented in UK politics. Support systems are fragmented, and most interventions begin only after women decide to run — leaving an early-stage participation gap.
The Process
Through systems mapping, stakeholder alignment, and in-depth interviews, a missing pre-political entry point was identified.
The Intervention
EH Forums is a community-led service model that transforms shared concerns into structured civic action — building confidence and capability before party alignment.
The Impact
Defined a high-leverage early intervention point and developed a scalable pathway for Elect Her to strengthen long-term representation change.
Context
Globally, women makeup only 10% of heads of states and only 26% of parliamentarians.
The scenario in the UK however, is looking more hopeful after the recent election - with women parliamentarians at 40%.
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But why do we care about this?
Global studies have shown that representation of women in political power is correlated with drastically positive effects on the nations they lead - like making them less likely to go to war and less likely to commit human rights abuses.
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Research & Insights
The research was conducted at 3 levels:
Societal: Desk research and interviews with academics allowed us to understand the context and define the scope.
Organisational: Co-facilitating a workshop and participating in a round-table discussion enabled us to understand the organisations in the current ecosystem and find the right point of intervention.
Individual: Through in-depth interviews with women involved with politics, we were able to hear stories of their experiences with political participation.
Alongside identifying systemic barriers through literature reviews of existing research, conversations with women who are involved with politics gave us deeper insights into their motivations and experiences.
Interview synthesis revealed that women enter politics through four common life-stage pathways rather than a single linear route. These journeys were mapped and overlaid with four critical factors — interest, information, funding, and networks — to understand how access and constraint vary across trajectories.
Mapping the current system
(& our place in it)
To understand where meaningful intervention could occur, I overlaid a woman’s journey into politics with the current support ecosystem. This revealed both the depth of existing initiatives and points of fragmentation.
Given the complexity of the system — and the limited timeframe — the goal was not to dismantle structural inequity, but to work within it, identifying leverage points that could realistically accelerate change.
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*This has been mapped to Elect Her's current service offerings and outcomes as mentioned in their organisational Theory of Change.
This visual Theory of Change was also defined and designed as a part of this project.
The Big Idea
Current offerings exist to support women who have made the decision to get involved in politics, however there is a gap just before that stage. We saw an opportunity to support women who are passionate about creating change, before they decide that politics is the avenue to do so.
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EH Forums
A new apolitical service offering to complement Elect Her's existing offerings, creating the space for communities to spark conversation and take action on the things that matter the most to them.
Led and run by women with a passion to make the world a better place.
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View a detailed outline of the Forums structure and resources.
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Impact (Users)
Beyond creating forums for discussion, the service functions as a practical training ground. Women develop public speaking, coordination, policy analysis, and stakeholder engagement skills through lived experience.
In this way, EH Forums acts as a strategic entry mechanism — cultivating political readiness without positioning itself as traditional political training.
Impact (Organisational & Systemic)
At an organisational level, the project clarified Elect Her’s role within the wider gender-parity ecosystem, introducing a distinct early-stage pathway that strengthened portfolio coherence without duplicating existing initiatives.
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At a systemic level, it reframed political participation as a capability-building journey, identifying a high-leverage intervention point that increases coordination and long-term sustainability across the landscape.