Budget: 16,815.00 €

 

Donors: SOROS Moldova and Sida

 

Problem Statement: 

Gender mainstreaming is an important aspect of civic activism.  Observations and studies based on the population of RM, points out that there are considerable differences between the manifestations of civic activism in terms of gender. Major findings are the fact that women are more involved than men in activities undertaken by and within NGOs. In the same time women continue to be more interested in developing their communities, although this interest is not always completed with a sustained approach. Women's activism, especially at community level, it is often not exploited. This deficiency is caused by several factors, including: lack of necessary skills, insufficient support or discouragement from family and lack of openness within the community members.

 

In the case of political participation, the situation of women who would like or would be appropriate to get engaged in the electoral process is more difficult. Research, conducted by the CPD, shows unequivocally that electoral processes disadvantage women candidates. This can be measured by calculating the "loss of gender" for all candidates. Thus, in 2007 the gender gap for mayor position was - 5.5%, gender gap for local councilor positions - 8.1% and the index for the function of district councilor was - 20%.

CPD’s approach in leadership training program for rural women was based on the concept of community leadership and gender-sensitive policy. This concept combines the idea of building leadership capacity sensitized to gender aspect.

        

 

Goal and objectives:

 

The training program aims to strengthen personal capacities of rural women leaders to participate successfully in local elections in 2011. To achieve this goal, the team identified three areas of CPD’s "intervention":

1. Developing community and political leadership capacities of participants  

2. Strengthening the support group of participants.

3. Promoting positive change within the community.

 

CPD team conducted the program based on 3 modules as follows:

 

Module 1: Capacity Building for Civic Leadership, which had the following objectives:

• Personal evaluation through the key practices of successful leadership;

• Identify personal strengths and weaknesses;

• Creating a strategy to improve personal leadership qualities;

• Create an action plan for long-term personal leadership skills development.

 

Module 2: Developing Political Leadership Capacity. During this module, participants:

• Get familiar with new approaches and trends in women's political leadership;

• They will appreciate their leadership style;

• Identify their strengths and weaknesses from the perspective of  leading personal profile;

• Will learn new skills necessary for political participation;

• Exchange of experiences and best practices on political activity carried out by other participants;

• Develop new strategies and tactics while working with voters

• Will increase their technical knowledge on fundraising, political communication skills  and public visibility;

• Will know how to realize gender analysis in the context of local politics.

 

Module 3: Developing and managing community projects. Objectives:

- Participants will develop skills and knowledge to create an implement a project proposal using LFA (Logical Framework Approach).

- Participants will develop a project proposal based on the context of their community.

 

Results:

CPD conducted activities through which participants were able to detect the gender relationships dynamics in teams or with the help of their support group. However, at the operational level training program was designed in three parts: training sessions (two sessions three days each), practice (periods in which participants apply the achieved knowledge in their community) and evaluation sessions (in which trainers assess progress of participants). We present the activities that took place through the modules mentioned above:

Within Module I, participants had developed a practical task, which consisted in the identification and analysis of women leaders in the community. Through this task, the project team sought to determine how participants can identify a leader person in the community, and how he/she acted and developed as a leader, how to interact with opponents, supporters, etc.

During Module II, participants had made a study of voters in the constituency. The participants’ effort must have been focused on several dimensions:

  (1) Identify the basic problems of voters,

  (2) Determine the awareness / acceptance of the participant.

The analysis developed by participants aimed to serve as basis to the electoral strategy: message, electoral platform elements, target groups of voters, campaign materials.

In the third module of the program, it was decided that participants to perform additional task to the standard practice (elaboration of the project) an analysis of the level of good governance in participant’s community .The analysis process involved:

(1) The analysis of the level of access to public information,

(2) The analysis of citizen participation in decision making process of community,

(3) The analysis of institutional capacities of local governments concerning the principles of good governance,

(4) The involvement level of initiative groups / NGOs in mobilizing citizens or decisions.

     Analysis of participants finished with recommendations that participants could integrate in the electoral platform and / or integrate the proposed project within the program.