Ariele F. Empirio and Margherita Pillan
The commitment and collaboration of associations are driving forces for improving women’s conditions. This paper reports on research that used a systemic design approach to study the Italian NGO league Consulta Femminile di Milano, to support them in their search for strategies that could substantially improve their influence on policymaking by local government institutions. The study analyses the league’s composition, the practices and activities, and the network of external partnerships and collaborations. Systemic design provides the conceptual tools to understand and produce a representation of how this community works.
The study aims to facilitate the discussion within the Consulta about the most promising actions for achieving their goals by raising awareness of opportunities and helping them to identify frictions that could hinder the evolution of their modalities of work and collaboration.
The analysis uses interviews, ethnographic observations, and web scraping to focus on the Consulta’s structure, governance, and external influence. The outcomes reveal the community’s diverse nature, highlight internal and external tensions, and identify leverage points for potential systemic change within the network and its acquisition of greater impact capability. The description provides the starting point for this community to identify actions that could enhance their influence on how women’s issues are considered in policymaking by local public sector institutions.
Keywords: Systemic design, women’s associations, system mapping, gender equality, relational dynamics, women’s empowerment