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Phnom Penh, Cambodia - 30.11.2011. The Knowledge-Sharing Workshop for the UN Women project "Supporting the Monitoring of Aid Effectiveness from a Gender Perspective" was held on November 30th at the Comme a la Maison conference room in Phnom Penh. The workshop was attended by 28 representatives of civil society organizations and institutions with experience in gender and/or aid effectiveness. The participants included leaders/directors of the leading gender/women’s empowerment organizations and networks, gender focal points in key international organizations working on gender and women’s empowerment, as well as representatives from academic institutions.
The objectives of the workshop were:
• To share knowledge on aid effectiveness and the commitments of the RGC, particularly regarding gender and women’s empowerment
• To establish the current levels of engagement of women’s organizations and networks at both national and sub-national level in the aid effectiveness processes and in monitoring aid flows from a gender perspective
• To identify the opportunities and challenges and possible entry points and tools to increase the involvement of CSOs in aid effectiveness dialogue and monitoring
• To identify capacity development needs of the CSOs at both national and sub-national level, which will allow them to better influence the aid effectiveness processes and ensure gender equality and gender concerns from both national and sub-national level are addressed
The workshop began with a welcome by the ActionAid Cambodia study team and an introduction to the UN Women project.
The participants then divided into three groups that discussed topics such as:
• National mechanisms for civil society participation in monitoring aid effectiveness
• CSOs current involvement in monitoring aid effectiveness and gender
• Gender equality and women’s empowerment in the national aid mechanisms
• Recommendations on how women’s groups
and networks at national/sub-national level can be more involved in
setting the agenda and monitoring the processes
After the group work, the main points from their discussions were presented, followed by a question and answer session. The following plenary discussion focused on the involvement of women’s groups and networks at national/sub-national level in setting the aid effectiveness agenda and monitoring the process to ensure gender is included. The capacity building needs of civil society organizations to actively participate in monitoring aid effectiveness were also discussed.
Finally a wrap up session was held to summarize the key issues raised during the workshop. It was noted that the participants had raised some very important issues and challenges that need to be addressed to ensure more active and effective CSO involvement in monitoring aid effectiveness from a gender perspective. The study team stressed that some of these challenges can be addressed through capacity building support, but some also required a review of the processes and mechanisms of aid effectiveness to be more inclusive on CSO participation and to develop more comprehensive and coordinated mechanisms for ensuring the mainstreaming of gender.
The workshop concluded with the study team outlining the next steps of the research process, in particular the provincial workshops that are to be held in Battambang and Svay Rieng in early December.
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