16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence: Day Nine

Commonwealth Local Government Forum

Megan Praeger, Project Officer at the Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF) Pacific Project, talks about the organisation’s work and the 16 Days campaign:

Can you tell us a little about your organisation’s work?

The CLGF Pacific Project works to promote and strengthen democracy, good governance and service delivery capacity at the local government level through advocacy, capacity building, research, networking and the exchange of good practice. The Project works with national ministries of local government, local government associations and local councils themselves comprising the largest local government organisation network in the Pacific, with members in the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu and partners in Australia and New Zealand.

The Project currently has a 5-year Regional Capacity Building Project (‘RCB’ Project) that comprises six key components or thematic areas of work: representative and participatory governance, intergovernmental relations and central government support, international and regional cooperation, local government capacity building, urbanisation and urban management, and project management and monitoring. The component on representative and participatory governance focuses the work of CLGF on advancing the role of local governments in achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment.

How does your organisation’s work impact women’s lives?

Through partnerships and alliances, the CLGF Pacific Project works to strengthen the capacity of local governments to deliver services to their communities. Since women and girls make up some 50 per cent of communities in most cities and towns effective, sustainable and inclusive service delivery can only be achieved when this share of the population has an equal say. Specifically, this means that women must be involved in local decision-making, so that their needs and priorities are reflected in urban planning and design, roads and transportation, shelter, water and sanitation, solid waste management, environmental management, peace and security, local economic development and recreation as well as in politics and administration.

The CLGF Pacific Project is currently working in partnership with the IWDA through a grant from the UNDEF on a 2-year project aimed at ‘Strengthening Women’s Participation in Municipal Governance’. The SWPMG Project promotes women’s right to engage and participate in local governance activities as councillors, management and constituents of municipal councils in Fiji.  It will assist councils undertake gender audits, develop gender sensitive policies and strategies, and create inclusive approaches to public participation.

The Project is also working with the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat to establish a database of women in decision making at all levels, including local government. This will assist in encouraging Pacific governments to meet the 30-50% target of women in decision making.

How will these program outcomes contribute to ending violence against women?

In their mission to represent and serve the social, environmental and economic well-being of all residents, local governments cannot ignore violence against women. Local governments can play a key role as leaders in local crime prevention, and providing safe, secure and healthy public spaces  The SWPMG Project will assist councils develop gender sensitive policies and strategies that address VAW and build strategic links with national women’s machineries, women’s groups and communities.

What is your organisation doing for the 16 days of Activism?

The SWPMG Project will be organising its second networking event with women in local government to be held in the first week of December. A local partner, fem’LINKPACIFIC will be interviewing the women as part of a series of community radio broadcasts. 

What needs to be done to end Violence Against Women in your region?

Historically local governments have not been actively involved in campaigns to end VAW. CLGF sees this as a key strategic entry point for promoting gender awareness and activism in councils. There are important areas of intervention that are still lacking, such as training relevant personnel to respond to victims of violence, ensuring street lighting is adequate, removal of overgrowth from public parks, ensuring the security of market women and their produce, and generally making public spaces safer. Local government relations with law enforcement agencies also need to be improved.

The recent SWPMG survey on gender and local government in Fiji found that there were no gender policies in place in any of the councils where the research was conducted. It was also found that national gender and women’s policies and strategies that address VAW do not identify the role of local governments in the implementation process. There needs to be a consolidated effort to translate the national policy and program framework into clear and targeted benchmarks for action at the local government level. Of course, this also means that more resources will need to be channelled towards gender work at the level.

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16 Days of Activism is a global campaign encouraging organisations and individuals across the world to take a stand against gender-based violence.
The campaign starts on 25th November: The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and ends on 10th December: World Human Rights Day.

16 Days of Activism was started by the Centre for Women’s Global Leadership 18 years ago. The campaign’s beginning and end dates highlight that violence against women is a human rights violation.

Thousands of diverse groups and individuals now take part in 16 Days, together calling for an end to all types of violence against women. Each year people organise events in their communities, including meetings, conferences, demonstrations, exhibitions and performances.

This year at IWDA, we have decided to use the 16 Days to highlight the work our partners in Asia and the Pacific are doing to improve the situation for women and girls in their communities, as well as the work IWDA is undertaking in Australia. Each day between 25th November and 10th December, we will post a short article about 16 Days our website, Facebook page, and Twitter page.

Tags: 16 Days of Activism, Pacific

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 under 16_Days.