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The Political Empowerment Program
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Women’s participation is crucial to the success of development programs with
their various socio-economic, political and cultural dimensions. To enhance
women’s participation in public and political life, the National Council for
Women has created a Center for the Political Empowerment of Women (CPEW), an
ambitious program, consisting of 3 major components: 1) developing women
skills to run for the parliamentary elections, 2) making the voices of
Egyptian women MPs heard and 3) awareness raising of the importance of
women’s participation in political life.
Developing women skills to run for the parliamentary elections
This is one of the major projects of the CPEW which was launched in 2003.
Through a collaborative effort between NCW and UNDP, a large number of women
were trained to be qualified for running for the 2005 parliamentary
elections. In 2005, the Netherlands Aid Agency joined the activities of this
project.
The project aims to:
1- Prepare a cadre of women of various political parties to be qualified at
the personal and technical level.
2- Increase awareness of the importance of women's political participation
through the adoption of a media policy portraying a positive image of women.
3- Establish a consultative unit to advise on how to improve the efficiency
of the process.
The project targets women from the various political parties, interested in
public life and political participation.
The selection of candidates is through nominations made by political
parties, universities, coordinators of NCW in the governorates, NGOs, and
syndicates. The nominations take into consideration the geographic
distribution and include participants from the seven regional districts of
Egypt. The final selection is based on a personal interview. Field visits
were made to various governorates to select the best candidates.
The criteria for the selection of candidates are based on the desire of the
candidate to nominate herself for parliamentary, local council and syndicate
elections. She has also to be familiar with the major issues of the nation,
have interest in voluntary and public work and have potential and skills for
leadership. She must pledge her full commitment to the training. The
candidate should be between 25-50 years old.
The training revolves around three main themes:
- Political skills and running electoral campaigns: i.e. the rules of the
electoral process, information on the electoral system as well as the
mechanisms and rules of the electoral campaign.
- Leadership skills theme: focuses on developing women's skills in the areas
of communications, negotiation, lobbying, advocacy, forging coalitions and
partnerships and conducting debates.
- Socio-economic knowledge theme. This component familiarizes women with
knowledge on macro-economic polices, e.g. the public budget of the state,
mainstreaming women in the national plan, and economic issues such as
unemployment, economic reform measures and its impacts on women.
The training is conducted through lectures, case studies, electronic
presentations, role playing, interventions and exams.
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The project is to be sustained
through the training of trainers from amongst women who have completed their
training in the center and from women's bureaus in the political parties.
The project also includes a component on dissemination and the media,
through:
- A supportive media strategy of women's political rights and political.
- A media watch unit to monitor and assess the portrayal of women in the
media.
- A newspaper on women's political participation, T.V. spots and a
documentary film, are currently under preparation.
In addition to the above, technical consultations are offered to women who
desire to nominate themselves for elections through:
- Arranging meetings with persons with academic knowledge or experience in
parliamentary work.
- Creating networks between trainees and persons with experience in
parliamentary work.
- Provision of documentation (e.g a guidebook, that include also previous
positive and/or experience of women parliamentarians or candidates for
elections with possible solutions to the negative aspects.
Through an ongoing monitoring and evaluation process, using : the evaluation
forms used in the training, improvements are continuously being introduced
to the training program.
Lessons Learned: These will drawn by organizing meetings with those who had
run for parliamentary elections regardless of their success or failure, and
meeting with trainees to determine to what extent they have benefited from
the project.
The progress so far (February 2007): includes the first and second levels of
the project that were implemented for the following districts.
- Greater Cairo District which include nominees from the governorates of
Cairo, Qalioubiya, Guiza.
- Alexandria District (Alexandria, Buhaira, Matrouh)
- Delta District ( Kafr El-Shaikh, Menoufiya, Dakahliya, Gharbiya)
- North Upper Egypt District (Fayoum, Beni Suif, Meniya)
- Central Upper Egypt District (New Valley, Assiut)
- South Upper Egypt District ( Aswan, Quina, Suhag, South Red Sea, Luxor).
- Canal District ( Suez Canal, Damietta, Ismailiya, Port Said, North and
South Sinai)
A database was constructed comprising all candidates, including those who
have been selected for training and those who completed the training.
For more information please contact:
The National Council for Women
1113 Corniche El-Nil, Tahrir – Cairo
Arab Republic of Egypt
1st Floor, Room No. 148
Fax No. 5748708
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