UNITED CITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS OF AFRICA (UCLGA)

Capacity Building (CB) and Development 

Ref: CB9  Women in Local Government: Empowering Women through Effective Participation in Decision Making in Local Governance

Purpose and Description

While some significant strides towards gender equality have been made at the national levels in many African countries, local governance has largely remained a domain of man as clearly indicated by the paucity of female mayors and other female leaders on the continent. Social stereotyping with its manifestations at both the domestic and societal levels has tended to impact negatively on women advancement and participation in governance platforms. Women remain largely marginalized, socially excluded and poor. However, the extent to which African local governments have responded to initiatives on gender equity remains largely unknown due to the paucity of the appropriate data. Local government services in Africa impact more directly on women as the primary roles relating to household needs for water, sanitation and health have traditionally been allocated to them yet numbers/ representation of women in local governments in both political and technical areas is very low. In many African countries debates on reforms have centred on particular components such as: improving service delivery, devolution of power and resources and citizen consultation with a view to greater accountability and transparency. A major cross-cutting issue that merits on-going attention is the fact that women’s participation in African local authorities remains low and limited. African women play important social, economic and reproductive roles maintaining stability in the household and community, and contributing actively to economic, social and cultural development of the society. However, women from all levels of society are under-represented in the positions of political authority and socio-economic decision-making. Hence the important talents that women contribute to the home and community are lost to the local authority.

The project aims to promote women’s equality in power sharing and active participation in decision making at the local level at legislative as well as management dimensions. Affirmative actions such as reservations/ quotas, legislation reforms and women-friendly personnel policies will also be promoted to enhance transformation.

The UCLGA will undertake the following:

Component 1: Strengthening the gender capacity of the UCLGA 

1. Establish and facilitate the operations of the Women’s Commission at the Africa Secretariat and in each of the five regions to spearhead UCLGA’s gender equality agenda developing strategies and taking actions designed to increase participation in local governance and uplift the status of women in the UCLGA family of local governments.

Component 2: Strategies Development

2. Develop a Gender Policy Framework through which the UCLGA will champion gender mainstreaming, including affirmative action, gender equality and women’s empowerment policies, by all its members.

Component 3: Lobbying and Advocacy

3. Champion the implementation of the Women in Local Government Charter
4.  Engage, through the organisation’s Commissions, national local government associations and civil society, all political parties, where the organisation is represented, in deliberations to agree on minimum levels of women’s involvement in local government.
5. Support the UCLGA member municipalities create enabling environments for the realization of 50/50 male/female representation in their councils and administrations.

Component 4: Capacity building

6. Run awareness campaigns and capacity building initiatives and interventions to promote and support the election of women into municipal councils and give support to those already in the establishment
7. Facilitate skills training for councillors and manager