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Women’s organisations praise government endorsement of national strategy for women
By Rana Husseini - Mar 10,2020 - Last updated at Mar 10,2020
AMMAN — The women’s movement on Sunday welcomed the government’s decision to endorse the Jordanian National Commission for Women’s (JNCW) five-year national strategy for women.
The 2020-2025 National Strategy for Women’s main vision is to ensure a society free of "all forms of gender-based violence and discrimination", in which women and girls realise their full human rights and have equal opportunities to achieve inclusive and sustainable development.
"We are happy that the government finally endorsed the strategy, since our approach from the beginning was to work with the government through the ministerial committee that was involved from the beginning with the entire process and endorsed all our steps,” JNCW Secretary General Salma Nims told The Jordan Times on Monday.
The importance of the strategy, Nims added, is that it was built with multi-sector participation from civil society organisations, the governorates, the private sector and Parliament.
“The priorities of the strategy were chosen through a voting process by the individuals and entities we consulted in the governorates, and they proposed solutions and stressed the need to focus on overseeing the implementation process,” Nims stressed.
Nims noted that in the next three months, a participatory process will begin for developing action plans, building the monitoring and evaluation framework and outlining the strategy's costs in order for the government to allocate resources so that the strategy can become a roadmap for donors in financing projects for gender equality in Jordan.
“From now on, any project or programme that is funded by international donors should reflect on our national priorities and commitment that is endorsed by the Jordanian civil society and stakeholders," she said,
She added that the national strategy's action plan will be biannual, in order to review progress and address challenges in implementing it.
Arab Women Organisation Programme Director Laila Naffa also welcomed the government’s step to endorse the national strategy, although she said that “it should have been done sooner so that we can start implementing it”.
“We were directly involved in the consultation process, and now the next step is to draft a plan to implement it in collaboration with civil society,” Naffa told The Jordan Times, also on Monday.
However, activist Randa Naffa told The Jordan Times that the “mandate of the JNCW is not defined well enough to exert the needed pressure for Jordan to implement its commitment regarding women’s rights”.
“When you do not have a clear mandate, then you cannot play a real role in exerting pressure and cannot hold the government accountable when needed,” she told The Jordan Times.
She added that the strategy should include measurable targets and outcomes, allocate a budget for each target and clarify the financial resources and its sources.
"For now, is not clear," she said.
There needs to be more clarity on “how the strategy will collaborate with and support civil society and how it will create a conducive environment in which women’s rights groups could practise their real work in advocacy and in holding the government accountable”.
Solidarity Is Global Institute (SIGI) Executive President Asma Khader, however, commended the "excellent" strategy.
"It listed all the priorities that we have been demanding," Khader told The Jordan Times, adding that the strategy was "well-drafted and was done in collaboration with civil society".
According to Khader, the next step is to ensure that the strategy is implemented properly.
“The government should allocate a good budget to support the strategy and work on providing other forms of support and resources to insure it is implemented successfully,” Khader said.
SIGI also issued a statement on Sunday praising the government’s endorsement, echoing Khader's call for proper implementation.
“We have had enough with pinpointing the problems and complaints, and it is time now to move to the next stage, which is real implementation, action, accountability and achievements,” the statement said.
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