FIDA-Kenya has continued to support the strengthening of women’s rights movement-building through a series of eight regional networking forums for WROs. The interactive forums were mainly conceptualized as an introduction to the overall objective of strengthening grassroots advocacy. The Women Rights Organizations (WROs) have since been working towards advocating for gender equality in their different areas through support from FIDA-Kenya under the Awesome Project.
Having established them in year one, we have been working in year two, which is the general elections year, to build on the strengths of the networks to ensure that more women get into governance and the incidences of electoral-related violence would be reduced in 2022. These two main issues are one of the key impediments that Kenya has had in the push for gender equality through governance structures. It cannot be gain said that the Constitution of Kenya 2010 provides women with great opportunities to engage in politics at different levels that is, Presidential, Gubernatorial, Senatorial, Members of Parliament, and at County Assemblies. This, coupled with other governance-related opportunities that present themselves in the National and County governments, is what FIDA-Kenya has been focusing.
In this regard, some of the topical issues that we engaged the WROs on include; mechanisms for accountability for women who take political seats; How to push for the gender agenda for the elimination of GBV through support for family relations, ending poverty among communities and especially among women, ending harmful cultural practices for example, early child marriages and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and electoral-related GBV; Mobilizing for women grassroots support for female aspirants through Vote-a-Dada; and Sensitization on the new electoral laws.
Through the forums, we have continued to develop accountability mechanisms for women leaders, increase synergies in WROs networks through grassroots networks, discuss approaches to eliminating SGBV in elections and advocate for our vote-a-dada campaign.