TrustAfrica

The project so far...

Strategies

• The first is to reduce violence against women in all its many forms. These include physical violence (whether at home, in the workplace, or in the context of armed conflict), sexual violence (including coerced sex), emotional violence (such as systematic humiliation or threats), economic violence (like restricting access to financial resources), and social violence (as expressed in patriarchal structures and norms that infringe on women’s social and civil rights). Such injustices, while abhorrent in their own right, also compound the effects of poverty, disease, war, natural disasters, and environmental degradation.
  
• The project’s second objective is to increase women’s political participation. While many official declarations recognize women’s right to full and equal participation in public decision making, the reality, evidenced by statistical data, is that women continue to be underrepresented. No government can claim to be truly democratic, or achieve equitable and accountable governance, until the right of women to equal representation in decision making is both guaranteed and fulfilled. The MDG3 Project therefore seeks to strengthen the role of women in governance and to promote gender-based accountability among state institutions, political parties, and social movements.

Activities
The MDG3 Project, whose pilot phase runs from July 2009 to June 2011, is now operational in seven Francophone nations: Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Niger, and Senegal. TrustAfrica and its partners are taking steps to:

• Compile a database of civil society organizations working to end violence against women and expand women’s political participation in these seven countries;

•  Convene training and agenda-setting workshops for civil society organizations working on either of these objectives in the target countries;

• Strengthen advocacy by organizing and sponsoring campaigns around issues of violence against women;

• Provide grants, seed funding, and technical advice to organizations working to end violence against women and increase women’s political participation;

• Develop mentoring schemes, internships, and other networking activities that enable promising young women to learn from experienced female leaders;

• Document best practices concerning each objective in the seven countries; and

• Document and publish the results achieved during the pilot phase.

These efforts alone will not end the violence and exclusion perpetrated against women and girls. But they can go a long way in securing the conditions for a more equitable future—and perhaps hasten the day when these seven countries join Rwanda in electing a fair share of women to national office.

Description of the project
The project aims at decreasing violence against women, increasing women’s participation in decision making, and property and inheritance rights in Francophone countries in Africa. Through selection, capacity building, sub granting, convening, and networking with grassroot organisations, TrustAfrica tries to reach this objective. The programme will be implemented Burkina Faso, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Mali, Niger, and Senegal.