Participation is a development approach, which recognizes the need to involve disadvantaged segments of the population in the design and implementation of policies concerning their wellbeing. Thus, any activity is expected to participate women in leadership and decisionmaking positions at different levels as they cover almost half of the population. The presence and participation of women in the decision-making process would enable them to revise the gender discriminatory policies and laws on one hand and would support equality-based new laws and policies on the other hand. Being considerate of this notion, this study was mainly conducted to examine the women‘s participation in leadership and decision-making positions: challenges and prospects at Bahir Dar City Administration (BDCA). To this end, the study has employed a qualitative approach to achieve the intended objectives. Interview, Focus group discussion (FGD), and document analysis have been employed as data collection methods. Accordingly, 20 in-depth individual interviews were employed in the non-random sampling technique. Also 23, in three group discussions living in the six sub-cities were held. Additionally, reports from the city administration civil servants department showing the women‘s participation in leadership and decision-making positions at different levels in the city administration were analyzed. The results of the study revealed that the extent of women‘s participation in leading positions at BDCA is 29.3% on average ranging from zero to 66.6% in each department, office, and sub-city. The major challenges hindering women‘s participation in leadership and decision-making positions at Bahir Dar city administration are cultural and religious factors, family related issues, time constraints, unlimited meeting hours, government‘s inattentiveness, and lack of continuous capacity building training, not supporting women‘s structures with a budget and the less number of female leaders in these positions as they are outweighed in the vote by males at times of decisions requiring voting. Accordingly, all concerned bodies need to take measures like breaking down negative attitudes towards women‘s leadership, increasing the number of women leaders, minimizing women‘s political participation gaps, supporting women‘s structures with a budget, and encouraging effective women. Keywords: Leadership, Decision making, Women, Challenges, Prospects, Bahir Dar city administration