Following its advocacy campaign for parity in municipal councils, which contributed, along with other initiatives, to increasing the number of elected women in Tunisia (48% of the elected officials in the 2018 municipal elections were women), the association Mouwatinet conducted several activities to promote equal participation in decision-making in municipal councils.

The action was implemented in two stages:

• Meeting with local authorities and civil society representatives on March 2, 2019 to present the results of Mouwatinet’s advocacy campaign in 2017. The aim was to highlight the importance of applying specific measures so the gender parity law of 2017 becomes a reality. Gender mainstreaming in projects planning and budgeting is one of these measures.

During the meeting, Mrs. Monia Rekik, Professor of Sociology and Gender Specialist, Mrs. Meriem Jerbi from the Center of Arab Women for Training and Research (CAWTAR) and Mrs. Lamia Méliane from the « l’Association Voix de la Femme à Jemmel » (Voice of Women in Jemmel Association) presented their initiatives to promote women’s participation in public and political life in Tunisia. Four municipal councillors also shared their experience since their election and talked about the difficulties of promoting parity in local governance.

84 people participated in the meeting: 15 councillors; 15 representatives of civil society organizations; 4 representatives of political parties and 48 members and sympathizers of Mouwatinet. At the end of the meeting, the members of the municipal councils said they are willing to implement administrative measures for a better gender mainstreaming in municipal programs, for example, by activating the National Plan of Institutionalization and gender mainstreaming, developed by the Peer Council for Equality and Eequivalence of Chances between Women and Men, established according to Decree 626 of 2016.

• Training of 20 females presidents and members of the ‘’Equality and Eequivalence of Chances Commissions’’ of 10 municipal councils of Sfax Governorate (Sfax, Chihia, Gremda, El Ain, Sakiet Eddaïer, Sakiet Ezzit, Hajeb, Thyna, Awabed khazanet and Nasr) on March 9, 2019 on gender mainstreaming in municipal projects’ planning and budgeting.

Through hands-on exercises, elected officials have strengthened their skills to effectively influence decision-making in terms of budget allocation, development projects and services. Thus, the training helped to establish a partnership with the "Equality and Equivalence Commissions" and to prepare the members of these bodies to plan and implement gender-sensitive municipal actions. A total of 31 people were trained on techniques to eliminate gender-based discrimination in their work.

Thanks to this policy dialogue, Mouwatinet strengthened its communication capacities with local authorities and consolidated its reputation as a non-governmental organization fighting for the gender equality in law to become a reality. Mouwatinet also formed a coalition with local associations committed to participatory democracy in Sfax to coordinate efforts and ensure a sustained presence of civil society representatives in municipal commissions as monitoring and development bodies.

This policy dialogue was one of the activities of the project CSO WINS ‘’Capacity-Building in the Southern Mediterranean to Open Policy Dialogue and Monitoring for Women in Society’’ which is funded by the European Union. The project is coordinated by the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed) within the framework of the Euro – Mediterranean Women’s Foundation (FFEM) in partnership with the Palestinian Businesswomen’s Association – Asala, CAWTAR, Association Djazairouna for the Victims of Terrorism, Forum Femmes Méditerranée, the Federation of Women´s Rights´s Leagues (Fédération des ligues des droits des femmes), the Euro – Mediterranean Academic and Scientific Network on Women and Gender (Réseau universitaire et scientifique euro-méditerranéen sur les femmes et le genre – RUSEMEG)

For more information, you can check the attached document.

You can also learn more about the other policy dialogues organized within the framework of the project CSOWINS in 2019 by clicking here.