|
UN Joint Programme
“Promoting and Protecting Women and
Girls’ Human Rights”
 Gender
Equality is one of the key issues for the progress
of a society. In a democratic society, involving
women and men in decision-making processes is a sine
qua non. Hence democracy cannot affort to be
gender-blind. It must strive towards equality and
representation of women and men in decision-making
processes and in the opportunities to achieve both
these goals. For the last decades Turkey has been
witnessing important achievements of women’s
participation in every walk of life. Much progress
has also been made in the past decade, particularly
with the passage of key legislation to protect and
promote women and girls’ human rights. However, this
legislation has yet to be fully implemented and
gender inequality remains a significant obstacle to
development.
Individual funds and
agencies of the UN have provided assistance to
promote women’s rights in the past, approaching the
issue from many different angles. By joining forces
in this programme, the UN is able to provide
interested local partners with a comprehensive
package of support to address women’s rights and
protect the most vulnerable women. UN Reform demands
that UN agencies go beyond coordination and
information sharing to pool resources for joint
programmes. By joining both financial resources and
expertise these programmes are able to provide the
most effective means of addressing the many facets
of specific development challenges. In addition, the
UN Joint Programme is designed to articulate with
other relevant individual agency programmes across
Turkey. The UN agencies have collectively pledged to
provide 1/3 of the financial support necessary to
complete the programme.
UN Joint Programme
is specifically designed to incorporate funds not
just from UN agencies but also from bilateral donors
and the private sector. Bilateral donors have put
significant resources into projects to improve
gender equality in Turkey, particularly in light of
Turkey’s prospective EU membership. UN Joint
Programme provides a vehicle for combining and
rationalizing bilateral aid for gender equality at
the same time that it provides a forum for active
partnerships/dialogue between donors, the Government
of Turkey, NGOs and other local stakeholders. The
programme is actively promoting collaboration with
other women’s rights programmes, including EU and
bilateral donor funded programmes, municipal and NGO
activities. This programme envisions 1/3 of
financial support for the programme to come from
bilateral donors. Until today, embassies of
Switzerland, Sweden, United Kingdom, Denmark,
Norway, and Canada contributed to the implementation
of the programme
UN Joint Programme
is also designed to incorporate the private sector
in programme support. In recent years corporate
social responsibility has grown in Turkey. Both
multinational corporations active in Turkey and
local companies are prioritizing investment in
projects that promote Turkey’s development. In
preliminary discussions during programme
preparation, UN agencies encountered significant
support for the programme amongst private sector
companies. The programme is designed to incorporate
local chambers of commerce at the start of the
programme, thereby engaging local level private
support early on and encouraging investment in the
programme. It is envisioned that the private sector
will donate 1/3 of the financial support necessary
to complete the programme.
While financial
support for the programme is coming from the UN,
bilateral donors and the private sector, the
programme also relies on local government support.
Specifically, local governments are providing
in-kind support and will help to fund implementation
of the local action plans, which are being developed
as part of this programme. Capacity building
activities are helping local government officials
develop their resource mobilization skills as well
as a strategy for fundraising to support local
action plans. UN Joint Programme will demonstrate
that advancement of women can be achieved through
local leadership and commitment to the inclusion of
women and their representatives in local planning
and decision-making.
UN Joint
Programme Description
 The
2-year UN Joint Gender Programme is designed to
address persistent gender inequalities by improving
the national policy environment, building local
government and NGO capacity, designing service
models for women and girls and raising awareness
about women and girls’ rights. UN Joint Programme is
being implemented by the UN, the Ministry of the
Interior and KA-DER. The Programme primarily targets
national level decision makers as well as local
government, NGOs and the general public in and
around 6 cities: Izmir, Van, Nevşehir, Kars,
Şanlıurfa and Trabzon. The cities were chosen
according to municipal interest and capacity to
participate in the programme and perceived needs as
expressed in preliminary city visits. These cities
were selected to demonstrate how participatory and
coordinated cross-sectoral approaches can improve
services, augment resource availability and improve
the lives of girls and women in a variety of
settings.
UN Joint Programme
is simultaneously developing interventions for local
women and girls and improves the capacity of
institutions responsible for service provision. The
programme is currently identifying the needs of
women and girls, including the most vulnerable
populations. Priority actions are being identified
through a participatory planning process involving
all stakeholders. These priority areas are being
drawn from the following: education; employment;
reproductive health; violence against women;
trafficking; asylum seekers, refugees and internally
displaced people. Once identified, stakeholders will
work together to design 5-year local action plans
(LAPs). The programme will support the start-up of
LAP implementation. By the end of the programme a
national scaling-up model will be in place and the 6
cities will be evaluated for certification as ‘Women
First Cities’ based on commonly agreed upon
criteria.
UN Joint Programme
is designed to address the above mentioned
development challenge. At the end of the 2-year
programme the following results will be achieved:
§
Millions of citizens’ more aware of
women and girls’ rights
§
Thousands trained to promote and
protect women’s and girls’ rights
§
Local government and NGO’s will be
stronger and more knowledgeable about women’s and
girl’s human rights
§
Six 5-year local action plans will be
in place
§
Citizens, community leaders,
religious leaders, civil society and private sector
in all cities have been actively involved
§
Local activities accelerated with
priority given to shelters, employment creation,
vocational training and girls education
§
Local and national political and
budgetary commitment increased
§
The 6 cities evaluated and certified
for their active role in promoting women’s and
girl’s rights.
Key
partners of the Project:
§
Ministry of Interior
§
Association for Training and
Supporting Women Candidates (KA-DER)
§
The mayors and the governors of
Izmir, Kars, Nevşehir, Şanlıurfa, Trabzon and Van
§
Donor governments – Sweden,
Switzerland, United Kingdom, Norway, Denmark
§
Private company sponsors and
§
All UN agencies working in Turkey
|
