The role of Provincial Women Development Councils in Afghanistan

Since 2001, integrating gender sensitivity into national policy making and implementation has taken the centre stage for most development initiatives in Afghanistan. A chain of developments focusing on enhancing the role and contribution of Afghan women towards national development has underscored the relevance of mainstreaming gender into the national development objectives and outcomes. In particular, the Constitution, Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) and the National Action Plan for Women of Afghanistan (NAPWA) have all underscored the role of gender as a key cross-cutting theme for achieving equitable growth and sustainable development and the goal is to achieve a “collective responsibility of all sectors, institutions and individuals to include women or gender concerns in all aspects of government work.”

Women’s Participation at the Sub-National Level

With the development of the Sub-national Governance Policy (SNGP) by the UNDP, provincial government offices are provided with a clear framework about their contributory role towards translating the national announcements on gender equality into a reality: “As mandated by the ANDS, by Jaddi 1389 (end-2010) in line with Afghanistan’s MDGs, women’s participation in all Afghan governance institutions, including elected and appointed bodies and the civil service, will be strengthened by providing a specific percent reservation of seats by enacting a law of affirmative action.”

This is significant as it opens tremendous opportunities for women’s political participation at the sub-national level where the majority of Afghan women reside and through the establishment of the Provincial Women’s Development Council (PWDC), this has extended into different areas of development programmes. The establishment of PWDCs also coincide with the global movement, which began in the late 1990s with local governments declaring their commitment to make equal the number of women and men in decision-making bodies at all levels and in all policy areas of governance especially at the sub-national level. This movement underpinned that without an equal representation of women and men, true democratic local government could not be realized. Equality of opportunity in politics and in the socio-economic arena is a human right.

This commitment came to fruition at Beijing +10 (the ten-year review and appraisal of the Beijing Platform for Action carried out in 2005), where many of the statements delivered by governments and United Nations agencies highlighted achievements at the local level. Importantly for gender equality, women’s role in politics was prioritized as it was felt women’s political participation at the local level was an indicator in measuring achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, especially the economic empowerment of women. Therefore, in the context of Afghanistan, this representation of women at the provincial level is far more important for having a direct impact on their livelihoods than national parliaments, especially when the provincial governments are responsible for the delivery of key services.

In Afghanistan, gender differences in representation particularly at the sub-national level can be categorized into institutional and societal constraints. While each affects the eventual representation of women in provincial councils and parliament, these effects are intertwined. This is because the societal environment that helps to define the political system usually has a direct bearing on the type of institutional design adopted and implemented (for instance adoption of affirmation policies, etc). The positioning of the PWDC at the provincial level provided a focal point for coordinating between the two different categories and at the same time acted as a platform to design and implement context specific strategies and activities that would serve as a comprehensive tool for addressing the needs of both women and men for making a holistic contribution towards national development.

WDC Session in Herat Province, Afghanistan, 2012

UNDP Gender Equality Project and PWDCs

Since 2008, UNDP GEP has been engaged in mobilizing communities in the provinces of Afghanistan to bring about a change in their mind set regarding the role and contribution of Afghan women to society. As part of this goal, UNDP-GEP had undertaken training programs of religious leaders in provinces of Afghanistan due to the considerable influence they wield among their constituencies and other similar efforts to provide an opportunity to influential men in the communities to learn about the correct interpretation of specific gender issues that would have an impact on improving the status of women.

The establishment of the Provincial Development Women Council (PWDC) is another right step in this direction in the provinces where the project has been implementing its activities since 2008. The network of partners established by the Provincial Coordinators offices in these provinces and linkages formed with community-based organizations has contributed to an expeditious opening of the PWDCs in the other provinces.

The offices of the Provincial and District Governors are the key partners for the PWDCs. In addition, the provincial departments of the partner ministries played a significant role for an effective implementation of the project’s different activities at the sub-national level. To extend the outreach and impact of the project, selected CSOs, media and women’s groups also has been engaged in the implementation of their different activities. This created a broad base for institutionalizing the different gender-specific interventions that the project has implemented at the national and sub-national levels to strengthen the national policies and strategies.

In addition, the PWDCs provided oversight for effective implementation and quality delivery of the projects, especially from a gender perspective. The councils have met periodically to study progress and deal with challenges, concerns and provide necessary guidance. It also has provided essential directives, guidance and addressed any challenges evolving in course of the implementation. PWDCs also established a coordination mechanism among NGOs and CBOs that deals with women issues at the sub-national level. In creating the conditions for an effective integration of gender issues, the PWDCs initiated different gender-specific activities in the province/districts.

The overall objective of the PWDC is to strengthen the capacity of the officials of provincial and district governments as well as other traditional institutions from a gender perspective to enable them to design and implement activities for promoting the political and socio-economic empowerment of women.

Provincial women development councils have been established in 4 provinces of Afghanistan by UNDP, Gender Equality Project. These councils have provided a great collaboration and network with governmental organizations, key NGOs (National & International) mainly working for women development, civil society organizations and community based organizations working for Gender, UNAMA and relevant UN agencies and local media organizations working for women. This widespread network has resulted in improving women’s situations in all aspects and addressing women priorities and challenges existing in Afghanistan. To have an effective PWDC requires that key members of PWDC should be in a better position to participate in decision making process actively and provide support and direction to the entities that are responsible for the implementation of any women related programs. In this regard, UNDP/GEP has conducted capacity building programs for PWDC members in the field of management skills, gender concept equality and equity, effective communication and relationships, leadership concepts and principals, monitoring and evaluation as well as English and computer courses. It is identified that having good English and computer skills for PWDC members is very essential for their capacity building. From one side, English and computer skills are required for professional development and on the other side they give more competence to the person for better communication and access to information and technology.

For addressing women problems and priorities, four working committees have been established in the PWDC framework including economic, legal protection and women rights, cultural and educational, capacity building, and governance working committees. In these committees, challenges and priorities for improvement of women’s situations in each aspect have been discussed in their own committee and accordingly a proposal will be offered to UNDP for approving and implementing. UNDP through these committees was able to conduct many projects in the field of income generations, establishing legal help centers for legal protection, and capacity building programs for rural women. Elimination of gender based violence is another priority in the provinces and districts. So through these councils (PWDCs), community religious leaders have been targeted to conduct community awareness regarding women rights, as they are key community members and highly respected by the community members.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The main inputs for empowering women involve awareness raising, building self-confidence, expanding choices and increasing access to, and control over resources. And establishing PWDCs is a significant step to identify women’s participation in the decision-making process and their specific needs, prioritize relevant interventions and supervise the implementation and formulation of effective networking among the different stakeholders for sharing of experiences and knowledge.

Based on my work experience, I have witnessed that still there is lack of women participation in leadership and decision making, for example in the establishment of provincial development council, which is a platform for women empowerment, exploring opportunities for women participation in leadership and governance and identifying women challenges and priorities. Even though there are significant achievements in improving women participation, we can still see that some of the women in this council who are the women representatives in city and district level are not qualified enough to present in front of a group of women and some are not even confident enough to speak out; in short I would say that low capacity and lack of confidence, existing conservative elements hindering women from developing themselves in leadership roles, are the main reasons behind the lack of women participation in governance. Actually all these unfortunate facts committed me to have an active role in improving Afghan women’s contribution to leadership. I believe that unless Afghan women are provided with the opportunity to develop themselves to the leadership and management level, most of the women problems existing in Afghanistan will not be solved.

Overall modern public management methods, useful leading of the community, professionalism, up to date research on theoretical and practical aspects are mostly not available in my country. As a result, efforts are not effective nor planned professionally. Addressing these by training new, young, active and hardworking women social activists will be very effective and can play a vital role in facilitating this objective.