The core strategy of the “Women in politics 2.0” (WIP 2.0) project is women’s empowerment and participation in decision-making as the key to a more inclusive society.
To maintain and expand a critical mass of female leaders as local change makers, the Project will mobilize civil society organizations at the grassroots level to support the policy and practice change to enable women’s empowerment and participation in decision-making.
The Project applies the participatory approach in:
- Bringing the learning and expertise from the civil society actors to promote local solutions for addressing the harmful practices contributing to gender discrimination at community levels – via local initiatives and campaigns on gender equality and women empowerment,
- Building a consolidated movement of civil society for addressing the institutional challenges and deeply rooted barriers toward a more inclusive and equal society;
- Building the capacity of civil society organizations (CSOs) on gender equality-related work;
- Expanding further the network of female leaders as local change makers.
The Project targets the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups of society, via direct engagement of CSOs as well as ensuring their participation in the regional dialogue events.
Activities will target all civil society actors – registered CSOs, activist groups, local initiatives.
Project Activities
The activities described below will contribute to the following main objective of the “WiP 2.0” project: Strengthen the role of civil society in setting agenda, contributing to decision-making and monitoring of governance processes on gender equality, women rights and women empowerment in Armenia.
Activity: Policy dialogue events for accumulating the local knowledge and policy solutions
Up to 15 policy dialogue events targeting all the regions of the country will be facilitated with the participation of local women organizations, activists, representatives of marginalized women groups and key decision-makers from national and local levels, to collect the evidence on the local challenges and amplify the local solutions.
Activity: Advocacy meetings to discuss the policy proposals for supporting country reforms for women empowerment
As a result of the dialogue events, the proposals will be developed in the form of policy briefs and analytical papers, to highlight recommendations for topical policies and/or practices and assess the impact of the ongoing GE reforms on women at the local level.
The policy briefs to be developed will cover the following topics:
- The role of the state policy in formation of the non-stereotypical image of women in mass media;
- Improvement of women’s political participation in Armenia.
Activity: Community-based advocacy initiatives led by women
OxYGen will mobilize local CSOs and activists to lead the small-scale advocacy local campaign initiatives with the potential to contribute to the reforms identified during the dialogue events.
Activity: Public information initiatives for addressing practices and perceptions hindering women’s empowerment in the country
- Information campaign interactive and analytical videos, social ads will be developed and widely shared to showcase how women are affected by the policies under the CSO scrutiny;
- All findings and recommendations from the local dialogue events will be accumulated into the communique and shared with the relevant stakeholders and state decision-makers;
- The project team will monitor the progress of the proposed/adopted recommendations and collect evidence in a form of human stories on the positive change due to the proposed and adopted policy recommendations
Activity: Joint UNDP-OxYGen capacity development activities for civil society organizations
- Many local CSOs working on gender issues at the grassroots level lack networking opportunities to get informed about the policy reforms, modern approaches to address gender-based discrimination, and advocacy tools to influence policymakers. The project will build the capacity of the local CSOs on the specific tools of advocacy and networking for addressing gender discrimination and promoting women empowerment, including women from marginalized groups of society.
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.
