UN Women- Fund for Gender Equality
One of the pillars of UN Women?s work is advancing women?s political participation and good governance, to ensure that decision-making processes are participatory, responsive, equitable and inclusive. As such the UN Women multi-donor Fund for Gender Equality (FGE) was launched in 2009 to fast-track commitments to gender equality and support advances in women?s political empowerment at local, national and regional levels through the provision of grants ? provided on a competitive basis - to government agencies and civil society organizations to transform legal commitments into tangible actions that have a positive impact on the lives of women and girls around the world.
In its inaugural grant-making cycles (2009-2010), FGE awarded a grant to the All China?s Women?s Federation (ACWF) to implement a four year programme entitled ?Equal Participation for Chinese Women? that aims to enhance Chinese women?s political participation: improving laws and policies to create an institutional environment promoting women?s equal rights; enhancing women?s influence in government, and strengthening government, women?s groups and civil society monitoring of Chinese women?s political participation and rights.
The programme began in December 2010. The total grant amount awarded to ACWF is 2,456,934 US$.
All China?s Women?s Federation
ACWF is the largest national women?s NGO in China. Its mission is ?to represent and to protect women?s rights and interests, and to promote equality between men and women? through integrating gender issues into economic and social development; educating women; representing women and children in the formulation of relevant laws, regulations and policies; and promoting the networking of women of different ethnicities within China and of Chinese women around the world.
Due to the status of ACWF within China and its access to relevant government agencies through NWCCW, as well as direct linkages to the bodies of the Communist Party, the organization is in an ideal position to promote and advocate for women?s political participation. The organization has long standing presence in the communities that they work in, and vast geographic outreach through the provincial Women?s Federations. This has enabled them to accumulate a great deal of experience in implementing international programmes in cooperation with bilateral and multilateral donors.
ACWF- China Women?s Political Participation Programme
The goal of the program is that women in three selected provinces at provincial, county and village levels fully realize their rights to political participation embedded in the Women?s Law, the National Women?s Development Programme and Village Committee Law.
UN Women monitors closely the successful implementation of the programme and offers continuous technical support to the ACWF grantee/implementing partner through a dedicated staff (focal point) based in the UN Women China office in Beijing. Additional support is also provided by the Monitoring and Reporting Specialist for FGE Asia Pacific based in UN Women?s office in Bangkok.
Justification
The Mid-Term Evaluation of the Programme, identified that technical support was required in several areas of the CWPP programme, and introducing international promising practices on monitoring WPP and their localization to the Chinese context was one of the identified areas. To this end, ACWF in partnership with UN Women, seeks to hire an experienced international expert to develop a Monitoring Guide, that provides technical guidance on different strategies and tools that can enhance work on WPP in China. The Monitoring Guide will serve as a practical and user-friendly document that will inform ACWF work on promoting women?s political participation under the FGE funded programme.
For the purposes of the Guide, monitoring WPP will be understood as different mechanisms that map, analyze, evaluate, support, advocate and promote WPP or as defined jointly by ACWF, UN Women and Consultant Team at the start of the consultancy. The Monitoring Guide will look at Special Temporary Measures as well as other kinds of policies, legislation and activities that are supportive to WPP. It will focus on creating an enabling environment to WPP, and looking at how women also can focus on issues beyond education, health and reproduction. The Monitoring Guide will recognize the interconnectedness of women?s political participation and their economic empowerment. Furthermore, based on the introduced promising practices, the Monitoring Guide will provide a set of localized recommendations that will be helpful in ACWF?s work on enhancing Women?s Political Participation.
The experienced international consultant will work closely with a national expert, who will be hired to focus on the localization, specifically focusing on how the international best practices can be localized to the Chinese context. Both the national and international consultant are expected to work closely with ACWF and its key stakeholders- including NWCCW, members from the Women?s Federations in three pilot provinces, and various UN agencies- in assessing the status quo and future needs to enhance women?s political participation in China. In collaboration with ACWF and UN Women, the two consultants will select case studies from five countries that share common sets of challenges and opportunities to China, and use the experiences from these countries to inform the work of ACWF on monitoring WPP.
No comments:
Post a Comment