Alice Emasu
8 October 2007
Kampala — THE Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), slated for November, will among other things, consider a progress report on the performance of their countries towards achieving gender equality.
The Commonwealth Women's Network (CWN), which monitors the progress towards attaining gender equality among Commonwealth states has been at the forefront of organising a series of activities prior to the CHOGM.
The network, formed by women and gender-focussed civil society organisations from the Commonwealth, aims at ensuring that the voices of the grassroots women form part of the progress reports presented by the Women's Affairs Ministers Meeting (WAMM) to the CHOGM.
The eighth WAMM was held at Speke Resort Munyonyo in June.
In Uganda, the women's network in collaboration with the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development and the National Association of Women's Organisations in Uganda (NAWOU) conducted preparatory activities geared towards making the views of rural women slotted into the progress report by the eighth WAMM.
The report, which highlights issues of gender equality, women's rights and empowerment, is ready and will be presented for discussion during CHOGM.
Florence Kaguta, the CHOGM coordinator at the Eastern African Sub-regional Support Initiative for Women (EASSI), says CWN will also conduct a workshop under the theme; Realising Women's Potential on November 20, ahead of CHOGM.
The network will also organise post CHOGM activities which include among others, dissemination of reports, sharing of experiences and handing over of the network to the ninth WAMM host country.
She says the women movement, particularly in Uganda, stands to gain a lot from CHOGM. "The mere fact that the communiqué from the grassroots women was developed and presented to the 8th WAMM is an indication of a good partnership between grassroots women and the Women's Affairs Ministers," she said.
EASSI, a regional initiative for women's empowerment with its head office in Kampala is currently hosting CWN which was moved into the country during the eighth WAMM. NAWOU is the national focal point for CWN.
Peace Kyamureku, NAWOU's secretary-general is happy that there is an improvement in the participation and involvement of rural women in the CHOGM processes.
She, however, says that a lot more needed to be done to get representative views and involvement of grassroots women into CHOGM.
She says for effective participation of rural women, the network needs more resources. "We should ensure that rural women understand human rights. If we leave this to men and the elite women, women emancipation will not be achieved," she said.
Currently, the network is working with the governments to implement the Commonwealth plan of action for gender equality 2005-2015.
Funded by the Commonwealth Foundation, the network updates civil society organisations about women empowerment. It also advocates for policy changes on behalf of women organisations in the Common- wealth.
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