Institutional Capacity Building of The Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA)

The mandate of UNIFEM's Institutional Capacity Building programme is to assist in building the capacity of the Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA) to act as the lead ministry for gender mainstreaming within the government of Afghanistan.

• What is MOWA?
• Policy Frameworks
• UNIFEM's role
• Programme Activities

What is MOWA?

The Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA) is the lead institution for women's advancement in Afghanistan. MOWA works within the government and with international and NGO partners to ensure that government policies, budgets and services consider their impacts on both Afghan women and men.

MOWA also works to ensure that gender-related commitments made by the government are implemented. These commitments are included in the Constitution of Afghanistan, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) [ PDF ] and the Beijing Platform for Action, among others. Visit the homepage of the Ministry of Women's Affairs »

Policy Frameworks

A team of technical advisors are currently working to help build MOWA’s capacity. Among other things, this team has enabled MOWA to develop the ten-year National Action Plan for the Women of Afghanistan (NAPWA), which is an integral part of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) Gender Equity Cross Cutting Strategy (AGE-CCS).

These are the two main instruments utilized by MOWA in developing gender policies. MOWA is currently working to incorporate the NAPWA into the Afghanistan Compact and the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS).

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UNIFEM's role

UNIFEM's goal is to enable MOWA to lead, facilitate, monitor and support gender mainstreaming throughout Afghan government ministries.

In order to accomplish this, UNIFEM supports MOWA in organizational development, gender training and research and planning.

UNIFEM works closely with MOWA's International Relations and Coordination Department, building its capacity to work effectively with Afghan government ministries, the international community, civil society and NGOs to implement national policies on women.

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Programme Activities

Through current and upcoming projects, UNIFEM provides MOWA with...

• Funding to establish partnerships with Afghan ministries and NGOs in order to facilitate the implementation of commitments under the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) and the Afghanistan Compact.
• Technical advice ...
  • to the Minister and Deputy Ministers of MOWA in their roles on the ANDS process. This includes policy advice and support in conducting inter-ministerial and interagency meetings on mainstreaming gender in the ANDS processes
  • to build the capacity of the International Relations and Coordination Department of MOWA;
  • in order to develop, implement and monitor the National Action Plan for the Women of Afghanistan (NAPWA);
  • on the development of the ANDS Gender Equity Cross Cutting Strategy (AGE-CCS) in order to mainstream gender in the Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) and;
  • on the implementation of the Afghanistan Compact benchmarks.
• Support for the pilot implementation of NAPWA projects which include...
  • facilitating women’s access to public transportation;
  • promoting women’s leadership and participation in the civil service and;
  • developing a national capacity to collect, analyze and use gender sensitive statistics;
  • more activities »

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