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UN Joint Programme 2007 Semi-annual Review Meeting held in Şanlıurfa
 UN Extended Gender Thematic Group convened in Şanlıurfa at El Ruha Hotel on 30 May 2007 Wednesday to review the semi-annual progress of the UN Joint Programme to Protect and Promote the Human Rights of Women and Girls.
The meeting was held in two sessions. In the morning session, stakeholders emphasized the particularity of the Programme that envisages UN, public, private and civil society partnership. They also reaffirmed their commitment to the Programme. In the afternoon session the progress of the programme was discussed. Discussions were based on the six-month review report which was distributed to the participants.
The opening remarks of the Review Meeting, UNFPA Representative ai/OIC Tunga Tüzer said that semi-annual progress of the programme would be evaluated at the meeting and despite the deeply rooted tradition of centralism in Turkey; UNJP has adopted a buttom-up approach to help the creation of “Women Friendly Cities”. Tüzer also emphasized that; all the UN Agencies operating in Turkey supported the UNJP and it was the first programme that has brought together public sector, bilaterals, NGOs and private sector. He underlined that all partners will focus on the implementation of local equality action plans and the establishment of criteria for Women Friendly Cities in the next six months.
Güler Sabancı, Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of Hacı Ömer Sabancı Foundation
Sabancı said that VAKSA became a programme partner because it was believed that UNJP would be an important step towards the solution of women problems. She reminded that apart from its financial contribution to the UNJP, VAKSA would support the programme through its grants scheme.
Mustafa Çöğgün, Ministry of Interior, UNJP National Director, emphasized the support of the Ministry of Interior to the Joint Programme. Çöğgün said that UNJP is unique programme which seeks transparency and active involvement of local decision makers and local women NGOs.
Governor of Şanlıurfa Yusuf Yavaşcan and Deputy Mayor of Şanlıurfa Fevzi Yücetepe both cleared their beliefs for the programme’s success.
Representatives from other UN Agencies, officials from Governor’s Offices and Municipalities of İzmir, Kars, Nevşehir, Şanlıurfa, Trabzon and Van, members of NGO’s, academicians and media also attended the meeting.
Local action plan workshops held in Ankara
 Programme city representatives gathered in Ankara on 20-22 December 2006 to lay down the groundwork for the local action plans to be implemented within the framework of the United Nations Joint Programme to Protect and Promote the Human Rights of Women and Girls (UNJP).
More than 70 local government and NGO representatives from programme cities participated in the workshops where they had the chance to draft local action plans with a gender perspective to find solutions to the problems women face in their cities.
Another important output of the workshops was that local government and NGO representatives demonstrated their will to cooperate and merge their forces to find lasting solutions to the issues women face in their cities. This was also a firm step towards enhancing cooperation between local governments and NGOs, which is a priority for the UNJP.
At the workshops, participants once again confirmed that if they would join forces and focus on the problems, they could overcome even the biggest obstacles women face in their daily lives.
As a next step, UNJP team will visit programme cities to work with the local government and NGO representatives to finalize the local action plans.
United Nations review meeting held in İstanbul
 UN Turkey Office, a year ago, started a programme, namely UN Joint Programme to Protect and Promote the Human Rights of Women and Girls” (UNJP), to achieve the motto “For a Better Future: Women Friendly Cities” in partnership with Ministry of Interior, Vaksa and KADER.
Annual review meeting of the UNJP was held on December 5, 2006 in İstanbul at Sabancı Center with the participation of Interior Minister Abdülkadir Aksu.
Aksu, at a speech at the meeting, said “Women’s rights is a movement that goes side by side with the struggle to adopt democracy as a way of life. Gender equality is a prerequisitefor social justice”. Minister Aksu also outlined the recent legal reforms towards gender equality and said that their goal is to create happy individuals and a serene society.
Güler Sabancı, Chairperson of Board of Trustees of Vaksa, said that women’s rights are human rights and it is the problem of all the society and Vaksa is proud to be part of the UN Joint Programme.UNFPA Representative ai Tunga Tüzer outlined the status of women in Turkey by giving statistics and said that the two-year joint programme has a $ 1,5 million budget.UNJP is currently in progress in six cities, İzmir, Kars, Nevşehir, Şanlıurfa, Trabzon and Van.
Capacity enhancement training completed
United Nations Joint Prog-ramme to Protect and Pro-mote the Human Rights of Women and Girls in Turkey attaches great importance to capacity building activities.Meeting the target for the required number of new ge-neration educators in gen-der will make a difference in the lives of millions of women all over Turkey.Capacity building has three stages. The first stage was provided to the women NGOs and it was completed in early June.Programme partner, The Association for Training and Supporting Women Can-didates or KA-DER Ankara, carried out these activities in six programme cities: İzmir, Kars, Nevşehir, Şanlıurfa, Trabzon and Van.At these training sessions, participating NGO repre-sentatives became aware of the fact that as long as they cooperate and bring their collective forces together, they can be the part of the solution.The outcome of the workshops tells us that scope of most of the women's organizations on issues related to gender is very limited. Their activities normally involve general issues. However, women do not pay sufficient attention to urban problems nor participate in local politics. KA-DER Ankara workshops also witnessed that some women’s NGOs actually operate as charity organizations. Workshops carried out in the prog-ramme cities expanded the horizons of the representatives of the women NGOs ope-rating in six programme cities.
Local Government capacity building
Another aspect of the programme was to create local services that take the gender dimension fully into account .UNJP, in this respect, also organized capacity building training for the local government representatives in the programme cities between September and November 2006. At the workshops participants drafted projects for addressing the most important local issues related to women and girls.Projects drafted at the NGO and local government capacity enhancement prog-rammes will serve as the basis for the local service reports to be separately prepared by the NGOs and local governments. These reports will later be incorporated into a joint local service report. Workshops will bring local government and NGO representatives together for the preparation of five year local action plans. Cities successfully implementing these plans will receive “Women Friendly City” certi-ficates issued by the UN.
Project Cycle Management Training
Securing sustainable resources for the projects that will address the needs of local women and girls in the six programme cities is a challenge for all parties.
With this in mind, from August to November 2006, Project Cycle Mana-gement (PCM) training was given to NGO and Local government representatives in the programme cities. PCM training in programme cities serves several purposes. PCM training facilitates access to sustainable funding for development of projects addressing social needs and improvement of women friendly local services. As a new approach, PCM brings local government and NGO representatives together and lays the groundwork for future cooperation between them. |
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