NEWA in collaboration with DEMO FINLAND has delivered series of trainings that focus on women’s political participation and decision-making for women in politics.
The three two days trainings have been conducted in the towns of Adama and Assosa from May to August 2022.
Participants of these trainings were women members of Benshangul Gumuz regional Council, Oromia regional council and federal house of people’s representatives.
The main objective of the training workshops on Women’s Political Participation and Leadership is to strengthen the role of women parliamentarians and regional council members in a way that increases their influence in decision-making for effective governance and plays their role to enhance women’s political participation both at regional and national level.
The training covered range of topics under policy influencing opportunities and challenges while touched core concepts in the essence of gender and the recognition of women’s political participation and decision-making in development activities, the relationship between gender and women’s political and decision-making participation and forms of women’s political and decision-making participation.
The trainings were attended by more than 180 women politicians.
As a follow up activity to these trainings, a post-election review meeting on the 6th general election process with members of Women Politician Network has been conducted and a project idea developed based on way forwards and lessons drawn from the meeting.
The need for a regularized and systematic dialogue platform facilitated by mandated agencies such as (NEBE) in collaboration with political parties would have immense contribution for women politicians to come together to exchange, learn and network was one of the recommendations of the review meeting.
A continuation of pre-election capacity-building training on women political participation for female members of political parties at the national level has been delivered to 50 women in early September 2022.
Mrs. Desta Tilahun, executive secretary of Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary party (EPRP) was one of the participants of the training for women politicians. She is also vice chair of women politicians’ network/coalition. She believes the training helped them to get insight on how they can build their capacity and pass the hurdles the patriarchal system poses on women who wants to join politics. “We, women in politics need to work on ourselves and improve our self-esteem. We have got a lot from the training sessions on how to bypass the patriarchy that puts hurdles in our way”. According to Desta women politicians, both in the ruling and opposition party face similar challenges and the training helped them to have a common agenda around this and beyond.
Mrs. Herowak Girma, executive committee member of Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) is another opposition politician who have attended the training. She found the training to be practical as its focus was on how to enhance women’s political participation, and personally she got very good insights on how to build self-confidence. She thinks similar trainings should have been given by the government as its also responsible for improving women’s participation in politics. Her party is planning to deliver similar training to women members.
