The United Nations Joint Programme Manager Nevin Şenol reviewed the Joint Programme since its kick off two years ago. Şenol summarized the developments and activities of the Joint Programme, as well as expectations for the future.

During the last decades, Turkey has been witnessing important achievements on women’s participation in every walk of life. Much progress has been made in the past decade, particularly with the passage of key legislation to protect and promote the human rights of women and girls. However, these reforms have yet to be fully incorporated into daily lives of people where gender inequality remains a significant obstacle for development.

Individual funds and United Nations (UN) agencies have provided assistance to the projects to promote women’s rights, approaching the issue from many different angles. By joining forces in this programme, the UN is able to provide involved local partners with a comp-rehensive package of support to address women’s rights and protect women. The UN Reform demands that the UN agencies go beyond coordination and information sharing to pool resources for joint programmes. By joining both financial resources and expertise, these programmes are able to provide the most effective means of addressing the many facets of specific development challenges. In addition, the UN Joint Programme is designed to articulate with other relevant individual agency prog-rammes across Turkey. The UN agencies have collectively pledged to provide one-third of the financial support necessary to complete the Programme. Currently, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and International Labour Organization (ILO) have contributed to the Programme.

The United Nations Joint Programme (UNJP) is speci-fically designed to incorporate funds not just from the UN agencies but also from bilateral donors and the private sector. Bilateral donors have contributed significantly to projects to improve gender equality in Turkey, particularly in light of Turkey’s prospective European Union (EU) membership. The UN Joint Programme acts as a vehicle for combining and rationalizing bilateral aid for gender equality and provides a platform for active partnerships and dialogue between donors, the Govern-ment of Turkey, NGOs and other local stakeholders. The Programme is actively encouraging collaboration with other women’s rights programmes, including EU and bilateral donor-funded programmes, municipal and NGO activities. The Programme envisions one-third of financial support for the Programme to come from bila-teral donors. At present, embassies of Canada, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom have financially contributed to the implementation of the Programme, while the embassy of France recently committed to become a bilateral donor for the Programme as well.

The UN Joint Programme is also designed to incorporate the private sector into its activities. In recent years, corporate social responsibility has grown in Turkey. Both multinational corporations operating in Turkey and local companies are prioritizing investment in projects that promote Turkey’s development. In preliminary discussions during the preparation of the Programme, UN agencies provided significant support for the Programme along with the private sector companies. The Programme is designed to incorporate local chambers of commerce, thereby engaging local level private support early on and encouraging investment in the Programme. It is envisioned that the private sector will donate one-third of the financial support necessary to complete the Programme. Since June 2006, the Sabancı Foundation has been supporting the Programme with funds that make up one-third of the Programme budget. On March 2007, Sabancı Foundation launched its grant scheme, designed to support locally owned Local Equality Action Plans, prepared by local partners in the Programme cities for creating Women Friendly Cities. The grant scheme will continue for three years with a total budget of 300,000 USD.

While financial support for the Programme is coming from the UN, bilateral donors and the private sector, the Programme also relies on local government support. Specifically, local governments are providing in kind support and will help to fund implementation of the local action plans, which are being developed as part of the Programme. Capacity building activities are helping local government officials develop their resource mobilization skills as well as a strategy for fundraising activities to support local action plans.

The two-year UN Joint Programme is designed to,

• address persistent gender inequalities by improving the national policy environment,

• build local government and NGO capacity,

• design service models for women and girls, and

• raise awareness about women and girls’ rights.

The UN Joint Programme is being implemented by the UN, the Ministry of the Interior, Sabancı Foundation and Association for Training and Supporting Women Candidates (KA-DER) Ankara. Sabancı University also provides support for change of mentality and raising awareness component of the Joint Programme.

The Programme primarily targets national level decision makers as well as local government, NGOs and the ge-neral public in six cities: İzmir, Kars, Nevşehir, Şanlıurfa, Trabzon and Van. The cities were chosen according to municipal readiness and capacity to participate in the Programme and perceived needs as expressed in preliminary city visits. These cities were selected to demonstrate how participatory and coordinated cross-sectoral approaches can improve services, augment resource availability and improve the lives of girls and women in a variety of settings.

The Programme cities were determined according to the eagerness and capacity of the local governments, as well as the needs verified during the visits made in the preparation stage. These cities were selected to demonstrate how adopting a participatory, coordinated and cross-sectoral approach can develop and diversify services, increase resources and improve the lives of women and girls.

The UN Joint Programme is providing support for women and girls in the Programme cities to be able to claim services from institutions responsible for service provision. The Programme has identified the needs of women and girls, engaged in capacity building and facilitated stakeholders to prepare Local Equality Action Plans (LEAPs), reflecting the priorities of each city. The implementation of the LEAPs is also supported through the Sabancı Foundation grant scheme.

By the end of the Programme, a scaling-up model at national level will be in place and the six cities will be evaluated for certification as ‘Women Friendly Cities’ based on commonly agreed upon criteria.

The UN Joint Programme is designed to address the above-mentioned development and gender equality challenges. At the end of an implementation period of 21 months, the following results are achieved:

- Four national meetings were held in March, June, December 2006 and May 2007, with the participation of around 1000 people, including high level representatives from the Ministry of Interior, the Chair of the Board of Trustees of Sabancı Foundation, Güler Sabancı, governors and mayors of the six Programme cities, representatives from donor embassies, Sabancı Foundation, KA-DER, as well as academics and representatives from NGOs.

- Nine stakeholder meetings were realized in the six Programme cities with the participation of high level local government representatives including governors and mayor as well as local women’s NGOs. Hundreds of participants were informed about the Programme.

- Capacity enhancement trainings for local government representatives on women friendly local services in Programme cities were completed. 125 local government officials in the six cities are now aware of their responsibilities in developing Women Friendly Cities. They have prepared 15 draft projects that were developed in detail during the preparation stage of the Local Equality Action Plans (LEAPs).

- 60 local government officials have received Project Cycle Management Training, and were granted with certificates.

- Capacity enhancement trainings for NGOs on women friendly local services in programme cities were comple-ted. 136 representatives of local women’s NGOs in the six cities are now aware of their roles and responsibilities in the development of Women Friendly Cities. The participants prepared 18 draft projects that were developed in detail during the preparation stage of the LEAPs.

- 35 women from local women’s NGOs have received Project Cycle Management Trainings, and were granted with certificates.

- Seven new women’s NGOs (Kars 2, Nevşehir 1, Şanlıurfa 1, Trabzon 1, Van 2) have emerged during the implementation of the UNJP. The UNJP has also contributed to the revitalization of the existing local women’s NGOs.

- Local Equality Action Plans (LEAPs) are ready in the six Programme cities. They are prepared in a highly participatory manner, reflecting the priorities of all local stakeholders which are governor’s offices, municipalities and local women’s NGOs. The LEAPs focus mainly on seven areas; women’s participation in local decision making, urban services, violence against women, economic empowerment, education and health services, migration and poverty, and change of mentality and awareness raising. The very first step towards the implementation of LEAPs was taken by the İzmir Governor’s Office. An official coordination committee on gender equality was established very recently. This committee consists of members from the governor’s office, municipality and women’s NGOs. The Izmir Governor’s Office also appointed one of its staff as a gender focal point which supposedly reflects their intention to form a specific gender unit. In the same token, other governor’s offices and municipalities are planning to establish similar bodies; furthermore some are working on the allocation of even symbolic amount of budget for gender equality work in their cities.

- More than 100 project proposals have been prepared locally in the 21-month implementation period of the UNJP in the six Programme cities. Local authorities and women’s NGOs actively took part in the preparation process and now looking for funding opportunities to realize these projects. Trabzon and Wetzlar (Germany) municipalities jointly proposed a project, titled ‘Incorporation of gender perspective to design and provision of municipality services’ to the EU programme, Towns and Municipalities.

- The UN Joint Programme launched an essay competition on 8 March 2007, International Women’s Day, open to all high school students in the six Programme cities. The competition recei-ved a great deal of interest. The winners of the competition in six cities received computers, while runners up received cameras and MP3 players.

- Sabancı University has provided support to the Joint Programme through holding a series of meetings to high school teachers and academics in the six Programme cities. The university organized the two-day “Purple Certificate Program” for 33 local high school teachers from the six cities in Sabancı University, İstanbul in July 2007. The National Symposium on Women and Gender Studies at the University was held the same month in Sabancı University as well. Academics from the universities of the six cities participated in the Symposium, sharing experiences on Women and Gender Studies.

- An e-group was established to provide a platform for local women’s NGOs and women living in Programme cities to easily communicate with each other, to exchange knowledge and to act together where required. The e-group has 125 members from 25 local NGOs.

- As part of empowering women’s NGOs, 16 member NGOs in need were equipped with computers, printers and internet services with the support of the UN Joint Programme.

- A number of reading materials were prepared for both training and awareness raising purposes. In this regard, five books, four booklets, five newsletters were issued and distributed widely together with six brochures on the results of opinion polls that was conducted at a very early stage of the Programme. Two brochures concerning the activities of the UNJP were also issued.

- The Programme’s English web home page was created at http://www.protectingwomen.org, while the Turkish web home page address is www.bmkadinhaklari.org Information on Programme activities are also available at the web pages of the six cities’ governor’s offices and municipalities.

The UN Joint Programme is designed to address the above mentioned development challenges. At the end of the two-year programme, the following results will be achieved:

• Millions of citizens will be more aware of women’s and girls’ rights.

• Local governments and NGOs will be stronger and more knowledgeable about women’s and girl’s human rights.

• Citizens, community leaders, religious leaders, civil society and private sector in all cities will be actively involved in gender issues.

• Six 5-year local action plans will be in place.

• Local activities will be accelerated, with priority given to shelters, creating jobs, vocational training and girls’ education.

• Political and financial commitment will be increased in local and national level.

• The six cities will be evaluated for certification for their active role in promoting women’s and girl’s rights.