Ashah Ntabadde
19 August 2008
Women from different civil society organisations in Uganda have urged the government to involve people at grassroots when designing development plans for northern Uganda if they are to work out.
"This is the time for us to react and act to government programmes, most times government looks at issues in a broader perspective they are now looking at guns going silent yet the problems of women are increasing and not addressed well," the Executive Director ISIS-WICCE, Ms Ruth Ojiambo Ochieng said.
"The government is telling people to go back but it has not looked at the land issue in the north this is a very critical issue big shots in government have taken away all this land," she said. She was reacting to the Peace, Recovery and Development Plan for Northern Uganda 2007-2010 (PRDP), during a consultative meeting in Kampala on August 14.
The PRDP is a government plan that establishes the guiding principles, the institutional framework and the strategic objectives for any future peace building, recovery and development interventions in Northern Uganda.
Ms Ojiambo said, "The ultimate goal in this meeting is to engage the women's movement in the implementation, monitoring and follow-up of the PRDP to ensure that women's needs and interests and gender (in) equality concerns are considered and that gender equality becomes a priority in the peace, recovery and development efforts in Northern Uganda.
"Government comes up with its development plans without consulting the people they are planning for. We are trying to look at PRDP in gender equality and women's perspective which it doesn't recognise in its specific goals," she added.
She said, "The document realises gender issues but not as many as they are, the plan doesn't address women involvement in the peace process, it has discriminatory legislation structures and practices in terms of gender and women and men do not share the same security".
Isis- WICCE is a global action oriented women's organisation.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 The Monitor. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
