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description
Regional Strategy for attaining Higher Representation of Women in Decision Making Positions in IGAD Member States by 2015
Regional IGAD Conference on HRWDMNovember 27-30 2010
BT Costantinos, PhD
Contents
Part I: Synopsis of research findings Part II: The Strategy Introduction…1 Locus of the strategy … 2 Advocacy Strategies …3 Women’s Empowerment Strategies…11 Legislative Strategy…23
Part III: Mechanism and Plan of Action
Challenges to and international mechanisms for women’s empowerment
Challenges: Politics is still a male domain that many women have found unwelcoming or even hostile
Opportunities: IGAD nations have acceded to international and regional policy frameworks on gender equality and women’s empowerment, effectively binding them to adhering to obligations, duties, and responsibilities they entail. These include Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW), UN Security Council Resolution 1325, International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on
the Rights of Women in Africa
Addis Ababa Declaration: Recommendations for Women’s Representation
Governments should expeditiously strengthen the national machinery for enhancing HRWDM and support comprehensive voter and civic education;
Political parties: Adopt clear and transparent rules to ensure internal democracy, with specific attention to gender equality;
Electoral commissions should purposively (as opposed to reactively) give due consideration to issues of gender equality and empowerment of women within the whole electoral process;
Parliament: Ensure that the institutions and practices of parliament are gender-sensitive;
International actors should support gender-sensitive voter education programmes and ensure women’s full participation in their design and dissemination;
Civil society actors should develop gender-sensitive civic education messages that highlight the capacities of women as candidates and political leaders;
Locus of the strategy Governments, CSOs, and political parties
promote capacity of women to enable them to be represented effectively in party politics, and
women parliamentary caucuses encourage and support women to participate in all activities of parties at all levels;
Necessary trajectories to involve women parliamentary caucuses and CSOs to urge political parties and governments to ensure gender parity within their structures;
Practical Mechanisms for the Strategy
IGAD should initiate a regional process, involving governments and other stakeholders, to create a regional GEWE strategy.
A national strategy should be nationally-owned and led, but conform to the core values of the regional strategy and should be aligned in a mutually-constructive manner.
Enhancing the capacity of the IGAD Secretariat Gender Unit.
IGAD synergises HRWDM strategy with its economic, peace and security, environmental and infrastructural programmes
Advocacy strategies
An advocacy strategy is a critical activity in enhancing HRWDM as it ensures resource mobilisation and the execution of programmes. While strategies vary according to local circumstances, the principles include:
Promotion of public awareness;Respect, protection, and fulfilment of women’s
rights; Compassion and active opposition to all forms of
exclusion;Intensified efforts to enhance local capacity and
resources of existing national and local entities, and the mobilisation of new and non-traditional methods;
The vision often returns to a single point: gender inequality is everybody’s concern. Hence, efforts are premised on a shared aim to mobilise all stakeholders in a scaled up, coordinated, effective and efficient strategy.
Results The results are premised on the removal
behavioural, financial information, and systemic barriers to HRWDM.
The results are: Increased numbers of women in decision making
positions; Impact mitigation on customs that prohibit HRWDM; sustainable, multi-sectoral and decentralised effort to
enhance women’s capacity to achieving decision-making positions;
Behaviour Change Generating and using Technical Information Ensuring Adequate Resources and Intuitional Capacity Developed standards, guidelines and institutionalised
best practices Empowered women form networks and contribute to
planning political campaigns at all levels
Principles, vision, goal and objectives
The advocacy vision provides a unifying idea for the planning and articulation of goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics. A clear vision, based on principles, enhances the ability of
advocates to work together and guides important decisions by advocates.
The vision statement articulates the most fundamental rationale for the activities and the types of change advocates would like to bring about.
The advocacy goal elaborates on the vision by adding important information on what and why. Internally, it helps to keep advocates focused on their purposes; Externally, it is for community groups, media, audiences and
partners; Good advocacy objectives
provide specific, measurable steps towards reaching the desired goals.
Good objectives are SMART: Specific and Simple, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant (to the vision and goal) and Time-referenced;
Purpose: public dialogue, expression of commitment, fundraising or promoting legislative
amendments
RationaleAdvocacy OrientationLeadership and group dynamics Publicity methodsVarious means of IEC conveying the messageDealing with weaknesses and threats Local resource (human and financial)
mobilisation Advocacy TARGETS depend on the political and
social environment of the countryPolitical and opinion leaders The media, CSOs, religious leaders, business and
trade unions, Academia, HRWDM researchers & Young women Public Figures and Celebrities
Key Advocacy Messages and Tactics
IGAD Countries, with limited resources, have built the necessary political momentum for GEWE
Advocacy must convince policy makers. Facts are essential to effective advocacy: Make them relevant, strong, positive; Keep them simple, short, and accurate; Make them politically and culturally sensitive, Write them down !!!
Categorising policy makers and opinion leaders based On their history of involvement in HRWDM issues; On identifying the best ‘lever’ for obtaining the support;
Delivering strong talk to build support; Exercising interpersonal influence
Women’s empowerment strategies
Leadership and education for critical consciousness Knowledgeable and strong women’s leadership; Education for Democratic Citizenship; Cultural and social changes -- social accountability:
Citizen Report Cards and Community Score Cards;
HRWDM Capacity development: should not be solely equated with training, education,
and technology transfer; Attention should be shifted to the environment in which
people apply their skills an environment conducive to mobilising social groups and motivating individuals as basis requirements for promoting
capacity utilisation and retention;
Capacity building Capacity building as both a means and an end
for HRWDM; HRWDM capacity assessment:
what and how ??? Institutional Formation Institutional Function Institutional Condition - effectiveness
Resource mobilisation The Need For Clarity Of Objectives, Popular Participation Broad Strategies For Financial
Self Reliance
1. belief in the cause, 2. putting the fund
raising and information in one package,
3. be professional - know the subject, evaluate, accept and back new ideas,
4. use volunteers, 5. be flexible - fit
fund raising to the donor [whatever the value of donation],
6. seize opportunities with enthusiasm,
7. do not be frightened - always tell the truth" [about your success and failure];
KM, CoP and Mainstreaming
Knowledge Management Systems Communities of Practice Mainstreaming HRWDM
Clearly defined and focused entry point National Policies or Strategic Frameworks should be
used as the frame of reference for HRWDM (Constitution)
Necessitates that advocacy, sensitization, and capacity building
The internal domain or workplace, where staff are addressed; and the external domain where potential partners are addressed;
Developing strategic partnerships;
Strategic approaches to mainstreaming HRWDM
Mainstreaming HRWDM operational Plans
Sustained Implementation of HRWDM Activities
Managing strategic HRWDM Information
HRWDM local level decentralised management
HRWDM Institutional Arrangements
Rights-based enquiry and situation analysis in the HRWDM
HRWDM Strategic analysis – and Strategic Plans
National Strategic Framework – Gender, Human Security, Human Development,
VAW, HIV/AIDS, Governance…
HRWDM Evaluation
Strong systematic campaigns must be launched with a communication strategy developed: public relations to enlighten society, social marketing in selling ideas and ‘cultures’ and enabling negotiations, and advocacy.
Legislative Strategy
GEWE friendly acts of parliaments Seek gender balance in their membership at all levels and
create incentives for women to be election administrators; Develop a policy on gender aimed at enhancing women’s
representation in the election process, train staff to be sensitive to gender issues;
Ensure the secrecy and independence of the vote; Collect sex-disaggregated statistics on the election process in
order to evaluate women’s representation and identify aspects of the process that can be improved;
Electoral transformation and registration: electoral quality, quantity, and meaning
Election administration, observation, and monitoring
1. Developing effective voter education systems,
2. Instituting simple procedures for registration,
3. Ensuring easy access to polling stations, convenient polling hours,
4. Provide security at polling stations and prevent intimidation,
5. Designing ballots and voting procedures that are clear and simple, making certain each person’s vote is cast secretly,
6. Providing balloting facilities for the illiterate,
7. To the extent possible, election management bodies should collect sex-disaggregated data on all aspects of the electoral process, including voter registration and turnout, in order to identify any discrepancies.
Political Parties’ Strategy and quotas as a means achieving the desired 50/50 share
Quotas: Reserved seats (constitutional and/or legislative) Legal candidate quotas (constitutional and/or legislative) and Political party quotas (voluntary).
While quotas are considered a controversial measure, various arguments have been set forth for quotas as a means to increase the political presence of women
1. Quotas for women do not discriminate, but compensate for actual barriers that prevent women from their fair share of the political seats.
2. Quotas imply that there are several women together in a committee or assembly, thus minimizing the stress often experienced by the token women.
3. Women have the right as citizens to equal representation.
4. Women's experiences are needed in political life.
5. Election is about representation, not educational qualifications.
6. Women are just as qualified as men are, but women's qualifications are downgraded and minimized in a male-dominated political system.
7. It is in fact the political parties that control the nominations, not primarily the voters who decide who gets elected; therefore quotas are not violations of voters' rights.
8. Introducing quotas may cause conflicts, but may be only temporarily.
9. Quotas can contribute to a process of democratisation by making the nomination process more transparent and formalised
Workshop guide Introducing the strategy Plenary sessions
Presentations Discussions Common stand on consensus reached
Breakout sessions Discuss the background document for clarity Discuss the strategy document for your input Discuss and complete Part III of the strategy
Thank You BT Costantinos, PhD
School of Graduate Studies, Department of Management and Public Policy,
College of Management, Information and Economic Sciences, Addis Ababa University
costy@costantinos.netwww.costantinos.net
https://sites.google.com/site/doncosty/home