Fortalecendo a Legitimidade das Organizações da Sociedade Civil para o Empoderamento e Responsabilização Social: pesquisa-acção com organizações do movimento das mulheres em Moçambique

This research aimed to contribute to broadening the debate on legitimacy and representation in civil society organisations, taking as a case study Forum Mulher and its members, in order to understand to what extent the organisations are contributing to change. Our work was guided by the following question: how representative and inclusive are women's movement organisations? There are three sub-questions: a) What is the role of women's rights organisations in mediating the relationship between women and girls and the state in Mozambique? b) What are the mechanisms for dialogue between women's organisations and the groups they represent? c) What legitimacy challenges do women's rights organisations face and how do they deal with them? Mediation by women's organisations has resulted in increased women's rights at the state level, but they are weaker at the project level, where lobbying on more political issues comes at the expense of the provision of services. In some cases, representation is affected by organisational leadership issues. It is important for organisations to define dialogue at all levels to enable those represented to be clearly heard.