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Cross Cutting Theme: Gender equality

Amplifying voices for gender equality

Issue

Gender inequality in the East Africa region is manifest at all levels: in the social spheres, at the domestic level, and in public institutions. Gender based violence is particularly problematic. While there has been increased representation of women in politics – Rwanda leads the world in women’s representation in parliament at 61.4%, progress has been uneven.

Until recently there was a lack of harmonized policies and legislation to deal with gender inequality across the region. But in March 2017, the EAC Gender Equality and Development Act (also called the Gender Bill) was passed by the East Africa Legislative Assembly. While the Act awaits to be assented to by the Heads of States and to take effect nationally, there is a clear need for a harmonised framework for action, to track success, and to make cross-national comparisons.

Project

The Eastern African Sub-regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI) is monitoring the implementation of the Gender Bill at both the regional and national level to gauge progress toward gender equality.

EASSI is a civil society network working through National Focal Point member organisations in eight countries of the region: Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda. Its Secretariat is based in Uganda.

The Commonwealth Foundation has supported EASSI’s advocacy on the Gender Bill by enabling interaction between EASSI and members of the East African Legislative Assembly. The project also includes the development of a gender barometer which will provide an annual report that assesses progress of government’s actions, such as formulating policies that remove gender based discrimination, guaranteeing women’s rights, and providing the necessary services for the realisation of these commitments. These actions require financial resources, institutional mechanisms and accountability frameworks that should be integrated in national plans and budgets.

Citizens views on government performance are a fundamental component of the barometer that integrates the use of a ‘Citizen Score Card’. The barometer offers evidence based information for holding governments accountable to their gender commitments.

Strengthening governance and democracy with the participation of young women

Issue

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) women continue to face challenges to participate in electoral processes, including voting and running for elections. A survey conducted by Aware Girls during a previous Commonwealth Foundation funded project ‘Strengthening women’s participation in governance in Pakistan’ revealed some of the challenges that hinder women’s participation in electoral processes, such as difficulties in accessing polling stations, lack of permission from families to take part in civic, political and electoral processes and having to vote according to male relatives’ political decisions.

Project

Peace Direct and Aware Girls are strengthening the capacity of a network of women to engage with policy makers, state institutions and political parties to advocate for increased protection of women’s political rights. This is being achieved by organising and building the capacity of a Women’s Advocacy Network of 20 young women and supporting existing Citizens’ Committees to advocate for women’s political rights in order to seek ways to contribute to a better, more conducive environment for women’s political participation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The project is also raising awareness and mobilising young women and wider communities to increase public support for women’s political participation; this will include radio programmes and peer-to-peer education activities by young women to promote women’s participation in the general elections of 2018. By promoting dialogue and engagement between the network and Citizens’ Committees and decision makers, like the Electoral Commission of Pakistan. The project will seek solutions to accessibility issues for women at polling stations, and advocate for the collection of gender segregated data on elections. They will also approach representatives of political parties, including senior party leadership to advocate for changes to parties’ manifestos and practices to reflect support for women’s political rights.

By the end of the project, greater awareness of women’s political rights would have been generated among young women and communities. The network of women is expected to have secured relevant skills and experience to continue to promote women’s political rights after the project ends. It is hoped that advocacy initiatives by the network and the Citizens’ Committees will contribute to a more conducive environment for women’s participation in electoral processes in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, thus resulting in greater participation of women in the general elections of 2018.

Peace Direct

Aware Girls is young women led organisation from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa working for women empowerment, gender equality and peace in Pakistan. Its mission is to advocate for equal rights of women and to strengthen women’s capacity to enable them to act as agents of social change and women empowerment in their communities. The organisation has received international recognition for its work to promote young women’s rights, including awards by the Stars Foundation and by the Commonwealth.

Increasing access to sexual and reproductive health rights and HIV services for women and adolescent girls

Issue

Nigeria demonstrated its commitment to achieving sexual and reproductive health for all by adopting the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, and developed a National Reproductive Health Policy and Strategy in 2001. Despite these initiatives, women living with HIV in Nigeria still face challenges accessing Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) Services.

Project

The International Community of Women living with HIV West Africa (ICWWA) and Womankind Centre for Women Empowerment (WCWE) aim to improve access to sexual and reproductive health services for all women living with HIV (WLHIV) in Nigeria.

The project plans to start by building the capacity of WLHIV to advocate for their SRH rights, and training them to document incidences of violations as they occur. The project also aims to create a broad alliance of thirty Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working on SRH to support evidence based advocacy, raise awareness among police, health care providers and community leaders on SRH rights of WLHIV. This will empower them to challenge discrimination faced by WLHIV and engage in dialogue with policy makers on accessing SRH services.

By the end of the project, awareness about SRH rights of health care providers and other stakeholders will have been raised, resulting in better access to SRH services by WLHIV. WLHIV in all their diversity will also be better placed to continue to advocate for their rights and to raise the issues that affect them with policy makers and other key stakeholders.

International Community of Women Living with HIV in Nigeria West Africa

ICWWA is a regional West African network, based in Nigeria, working to promote the rights of Women Living with HIV (WLHIV). The organisation’s main areas of focus are advocacy, mobilisation and capacity building of WLHIV for them to play a primary role in HIV programming in Nigeria. ICWWA has been engaging in dialogue with government bodies and departments for many years. For example, it has engaged with the Federal Ministry of Health on a number of initiatives on maternal health and also participated in the development of the Health Sector HIV strategic Plan. It also works closely with the National Agency for the Control of AIDS in the implementation of some of the agency’s HIV/AIDS programmes. ICWWA will partner with the Association of WLHIV in Nigeria, Womankind Centre for Women Empowerment (and the Unique Aid Foundation (UAF) to deliver this project.

Association of women living with HIV in Nigeria

ASWHAN is an association of Women Living with HIV with offices in Ondo and Lagos. Its main objectives are to provide economic empowerment, care and support for women living with HIV.

Womankind Centre for Women Empowerment

Womankind Centre for Women Empowerment is a support group of Women Living with HIV, based in Nasarawa. Its overall objective is to provide care and support services to its members. Unique Aid Foundation (UAF) is an association of people living with HIV, based in Abuja. Its main objective is to strengthen communities to respond to the challenges posed by the AIDS epidemic.

Strengthening women participation in governance in Balochistan

Issue

Significant legislation has been passed in Pakistan that protects the rights of women to participate in political and electoral processes: 33 per cent of seats are reserved for women in local government and 17 per cent in provincial assemblies, national assemblies and the senate. Despite this progress, there are still 11.7 million more men on the electoral role than women. In 2017, the federal cabinet reformed electoral laws making it mandatory for political parties to allot five percent of their tickets to women candidates to boost women’s representation in political decision-making and law-making.

Project

To support these reforms, Health and Rural Development (HARD) is seeking to improve the participation of women in politics and local governance in the Balochistan province by creating informal district assemblies to discuss the sociocultural, religious and structural impediments to women’s participation in politics in tandem with building the capacity of young women and their groups to engage in participatory governance and civic leadership. The young women are being encouraged to come forward and engage with the wider civic landscape including other civil society organisations and government. To support participation from the general public, a political resource centre for women to access information on civic and political rights, is being established. The resource centre provides guidance on registering for voting and obtaining the national identity card.

At the end of the project, it is expected that there will be increased participation of women in democratic processes at the local level; more women will be able to vote and contest elections; and there will be improved governance through the participation of more women.

Health and Rural Development

HARD Balochistan is a 80% young women led organisation and registered in 1961 and 1860 Act as a non-governmental organisation in Pakistan, which is working on a broad range of issues from health, education, human rights, democratic governance to girls and women rights and advocacy. HARD has experience of working within the province of Balochistan for the empowerment of women and marginalised communities .