Advancing Women’s Socio-Economic Rights by Strengthening Women’s Associations

The project aimed to facilitate the creation of a strong women’s movement and activism, enhance the participation of women and women’s groups and to bring women’s socio-economic issues and especially Violence Against Women (VAW) to the attention of decision-makers at the national and regional levels.

The project worked towards ensuring the realization of the socio-economic rights of women through enhancing the capacity of women’s associations and promoting dialogue in good governance and women’s rights protection. As a result of implementing this project, NEWA and its partners have made notable impact with regards to empowering women and girls and enhancing gender equality.

Objective

The overall objective of this project was to strengthen dialogue and awareness towards the progressive realization of the socio-economic rights of women and contribute to the achievements of the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II) component on women’s empowerment and good governance. NEWA implemented the project in Addis Ababa, Gambella and Amhara region with its partner organizations.

Results

The project registered impressive results in undertaking women’s empowerment actions that contributed to safeguarding women’s socio-economic rights. The project has implemented activities that resulted in enhanced women’s and girls’, as well as other stakeholders’, capacity that helped the community, women, men, service providers and decision-makers understand and act towards gender equality. 

• The establishment of 65 Girls’ Clubs in which 765 members have been active in initiating, organizing, leading and participating in discussion forums. In addition to developing their confidence, the member girls increased the awareness of the school community and the public at large on Gender-based Violence (GBV) and issues affecting the lives of girls and women. 

• A significant contribution to the institutional sustainability of NEWA and its partners, despite the challenging times they experienced due to the civil society proclamation in place since the year 2009. This allowed them to continue to play a major role in effectively addressing gender equality and women’s socio-economic empowerment in their respective regions and at national level. The EU CSF II grant helped the network organization and its co-applicant partners strengthen their activities by providing the necessary resources to have the required human resources, organizational strategies and capacities in place.

• 1,690 local community members were organized into 92 discussion groups. These regularly conducted discussions and provided feedback based on their monitoring of the implementation of existing policies and laws relevant to women, thereby ensuring the accountability and responsiveness of socio-economic services in the target areas. To support these groups, the project developed policy monitoring tools for their application.

• A total of 114 women support groups were established and these are actively engaged in the protection of women from violations of their rights in the target area.