UN Women Cameroon organized a consultation workshop with partners as part of her framework to support government action in the implementation of her National Gender Policy. The event that took place on the 17th June 2021, brought together 18 participants drown from 12 key government institutions in Yaounde. CAMYOSFOP also participated and contributed in this meeting.
The objective of this workshop was to have an inclusive strategic agenda, brainstorm, share opinions and recommendations on potential UN Women interventions, on the development of the theory of change for the next five years the first of its kind.
To align with the work on the four main thematic of the outcome report developed for the period 2022 to 2026 took into consideration perspectives on gender dimension on gender equality responses outcome report, with the objective to have participatory and inclusive dialogue that tackles gender equality.
Discussions were open on four thematics:
- Governance and participation in public life,
- Ending violence against women and girls(EVAWGs)
- Economic empowerment and resilience
- Peace and security, humanitarian action and disaster risk reduction
Cameroon Youths and Students Forum for Peace (CAMYOSFOP) during this consultation worked on two thematics, EVAWGs and economic empowerment and resilience. During the consultation much was anticipated as a set of new events are pushing, leading to changes on the UN Women strategic action plan from three to five years. Given the many challenges caused by the global health pandemic COVID-19 as well as the crisis in the two English speaking regions and North of Cameroon there is need to change approach. These crises have greatly changed the economic and social patterns thus everyone needs to adapt to these new changes.
In line with the workshop objective the UN Women Cameroon Resident Representative Hind Jalal in her open address encourage a participatory dialogue with the current and potential partners of the UN Women Cameroon Office in order to adequately involve them in the process of concluding the Strategic Note and ownership of the document. She further elaborated on the need for participants to also highlight issues specific to their work, adding that they have been a series of consultations on the outcome of the strategic note.
This framework she added is in line with the national gender priorities, the National Gender Policy, national sector plans as well as international commitments. She ended with a call for partners to get involved in the processes, take the workshop as a reflection session and ensure ownership of the outcome document.
Under the facilitation of Thierry during plenary presentations, he indicated the consultation brings together recommendations important in illuminating key aspect of the outcome to work on developing inclusive strategic note. This he said explains why the strategic approached changed from three years to five years.
The discussion held was to meet up with the UN Women involvement to ensure that no one is left behind. This is an open platform for stakeholders to get involved, discuss progress and challenges to the implementation of the UN Women Strategic Note outcome report and how this aligns to their work.
The workshop ended with recommendation on key actions that could be implemented in the next five years.