Last week, with the inception of policy dialogue events, we together with the UN Development Program launched the second phase of the “Women in Politics” project. On October 25 online and October 27 in Vanadzor, overall more than 60 women and men, including representatives of local CSOs, local councils, and vulnerable groups, as well as simply active women participated in discussions entitled “Women’s Political Participation in Armenia.”
“During the first phase of the project, we exerted efforts to expand women’s involvement in local self-government bodies. We made a weighty contribution to introduction of a gender quota into elections to local self-government bodies.
During this phase, we will be continuing our work to expand women’s involvement in decision-making processes, in particular, at the local level. We will have about fifteen meetings, which will be inclusive like today’s meeting. During these meetings, we will voice problems, challenges related to women’s political participation, which later will be summarized in policy briefs and presented to decision makers,” stated Margarita Hakobyan, Executive Director of the OxYGen Foundation, in her opening remarks for the meeting held on October 25.
During the meetings, gender expert Tamara Hovnatanyan spoke about the current situation with women’s political participation in the world and Armenia.
In the follow-up, the participants raised issues of interest to them, spoke about problems with women’s participation in local self-government bodies that they had observed. Some of these problems are presented as follows.
During this year, two more policy dialogue events will be held concerning the topic of formation of a non-stereotypical image of women in mass media.
Voiced Problems/Recommendations
- To create mechanisms for ensuring the involvement of women with disabilities in local councils: opportunity for remote participation, transportation provision, accessibility of meeting halls.
- To increase the effectiveness of women’s engagement through improvement of their preparedness and capacity development.
- To discuss the possibility of paid membership in local councils with a view to enhancing their sense of responsibility, motivation and accountability.
- To combat stereotypes on political activism of women, and especially of women with disabilities.
- To address the problem with provision of working rooms.
- To increase public awareness of the functions of local councils, of opportunities to participate in open sessions, etc.
The project is funded by UK Good Governance Fund (UK GGF) and implemented by UNDP in Armenia in partnership with OxYGen Foundation, the RA Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure, the RA Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.
