Congo/ Promotion of women's rights: closure of the Women's Leadership project

After five years of implementation in six provinces of the DRC, the "Voix Leadership de la femme" project has supported over 80 projects and women's rights organizations (ODDF).

During a ceremony recently held in Kinshasa to evaluate and close the project, Romain Rabet, the Carter Center's country representative in the DRC, acknowledged that the project had been beneficial insofar as it had produced different results for each project.country representative for the Carter Center in the DRC, Romain Rabet, acknowledged that the project had been beneficial insofar as it had produced differentiated results for each project. " It's difficult to sum up 5 years of work in a few sentences, but I think the main achievement has been to support over 80 projects and organizations working to defend and promote women's rights. This support has taken many forms and, above all, it has produced quite differentiated results, since each project has been different, each project has responded to the needs of the community directly involved in the project. So there were projects in various directions, whether it was on access to justice, income-generating activities, or changing customary norms ", he declared.

Romain Rabet also pointed out that, in five years' time, the "Voix Leadership de la femme" project has enabled beneficiary NGOs to organize their internal governance and project implementation. "I think that at the end of 5 years, the main thing we can say is that the organizations we have worked with have changed scale. Their internal governance is much stronger. They are much more efficient in their project implementation and in their support for local populations, and they are much more relevant to the people they are trying to help. And that's what we think is most important, since the ultimate aim of the project was to help develop a women's rights movement across the country, and thus increase the capacity of organizations to represent women's interests and voices. I think the project has been successful in this respect.

Tributes to the Head of State

The Carter Center's partner women's and girls' rights organizations, as part of the Women's Voice and Leadership (VLF) program funded by Global Affairs Canada, held a conference at the Venus village in the commune of N'sele. At the event, VLF beneficiaries paid tribute to the President of the Republic, Mr. Felix Antoine Tshisekedi. Felix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, for his role as champion of positive masculinity and the significant advances made in women's representation in decision-making bodies of women in decision-making bodies, notably with the appointment of the Prime Minister and the entry of 30% women into the Suminwa government, a first in the history of the DRC.

The organizations praised the existing collaboration between ODDF and the Congolese government, as well as the politico-administrative and customary authorities of the program's six intervention provinces: Tshopo, Équateur, Kasaï-Central, Tanganyika, Sud-Kivu and Kinshasa. "Their ownership, involvement and collaboration have been very decisive in the significant achievement of the program's expected results," they stressed. "Notall objectives are achieved at the end of a program, because we have encountered difficulties, but at least things are moving forward when we see the state of deep Congo, we can say that things are moving forward in this project. The women have been admirable. They fought and were accompanied by men, and the men were also able to benefit from this project because it's already changing the community.t'étais au côté des femmes", declared civil society representative and VLF project steering committee chair Marie-Madeleine Kalala.

In particular, the ODDFs congratulated the government of Equateur province for its support of the VLF project, notably through the granting of three plots of land to women from the communities of Bongonde, Bomboko and Bongo.s of Bongonde, Bomboko and Marché de l'Ecole, which has enabled them to set up grouped income-generating activities. In Kasaï-Central, they mentioned the support of the customary chiefs of Dimbelenge and Kazumba in changing seven social norms that demean women and girls.

Despite these advances, the ODDF noted the low economic power of women and the persistence of armed and inter-community conflicts. They therefore recommend that the central government pursue its efforts to stabilize the east of the country, where women are often the victims of atrocities committed by armed groups, and to involve women more closely in peacemaking efforts. To the Minister of Justice, the ODDF recommended making it easier for women's organizations to obtain legal status, by streamlining the conditions in place.

Source: www.adiac-congo.com