For a Better Future Women and Girls First Issue 2, June 2006 A Newsletter of the United Nations Joint Programme to Promote and Protect Women and Girls' Human Rights

UN Joint Programme (UNJP) is the first programme that brings local governments, NGOs, the private sector and UN together.
UNJP will achieve:
- A suitiable political environment  for protection and promotion of women’s and girls’ rights
- Local government capacity to plan and implement quality service plans for women and girls will be enhanced,
 - NGO capacity will be developed,
- General public will be educated on women’s and girls’ rights, support mechanism will be strengthened and diversified.

UN has conducted several programmes to increase awareness on gender issues in Turkey in cooperation with government officials, NGOs and private sector.  In addition to that, the Turkish government has legislated several reforms to improve women's rights.

          In this context, several successful projects intitiated by UN have contributed significantly to the better understanding of gender and women's rights issues in Turkey.
          However, to achieve a lasting and cumulative result for gender issues, an umbrella programme was essential. Hence, for a desirable outcome of  the previous programmes and  recent legislations, all parties (namely local governments, NGOs, private sector and citizens) must assume their responsibilities to create a lasting and productive cycle of cooperation.

           The United Nations Joint Programme (UNJP) is a collaborative effort between NGOs, local governments, private sector companies and other partners to establish an appropriate political environment for the creation and implementation of effective policies and programmes to protect and promote women's and girls' rights.

          With this programme, UN is bringing both local governments, NGOs and private sector together for the first time to create a new approach to gender issues, to make society more gender sensitive, to increase awareness on legal rights and to create a lasting cooperation among the parties involved and raising awareness about women and girls' rights.

          UNJP will be reformatted for implementation accross the country, after the evaluation of the outcome of  the main programme.