- Program Civil Society
- Program Area Special Initiatives
- Grant Amount $100,000
- Grant Period July 1, 2004–June 30, 2006
- Location Cape Town, South Africa
- Geographic Focus Western Cape, Province of the
About this grant
In 1996, the Women and Local Government project was created by the Gender Advocacy Programme to raise awareness among South African women about the roles and functions of local government and how to hold elected officials publicly accountable. The project organizes capacity-building workshops for community members and councilors; conducts research; and works with parliament to make local government more gender sensitive.Multiyear funding will enable the project to continue facilitating capacity-building workshops for women from community-based organizations; evaluate the impact of the program on improving the relationship between local authorities and women; and support research and policy advocacy at the national level on how to strengthen women’s participation in local government for local elections in 2005.Accomplishments during the past two years included identifying municipalities that had implemented policy and legislative frameworks on gender issues; conducting research on women’s participation in the integrated development planning process; developing gender-sensitive key performance indicators for local government; assisting municipalities with the development of gender policies; and joining the international advocacy campaign to increase the representation of women at all levels of government worldwide.