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• Project on Strengthening Women and Women’s Civil Society Organizations in Less Developed Regions of Turkey

Financially backed by the European Union the project was implemented by the GAP Regional Development Administration in three less developed regions of the country (GAP Region, Eastern Anatolia Region and Eastern Black Sea Region).

Objectives

• Promoting “gender-sensitive approach” in three regions by building capacity in human resources of local governments, state agencies and non-profit organizations,
• Enhancing technical and organizational capacity of women’s CSOs,
• Launching new women’s organizations in three regions,
• Improving communication and cooperation of women’s CSOs,
• Furthering dialogue and partnerships between women’s CSOs, governmental organizations and local governments,
• Implementing technical assistance and grant programme for building an institutional structure; developing projects and improving management capacity in women’s CSOs in the context of combatting gender-based discrimination, building awareness in gender issues and strengthening the social, political and economic status of women.

Project Target Group and other Parties to be affected

The target group consists of local women and women’s organizations. The project will also have its implications for public agencies and municipalities.

Project Duration

The project was given start in May 2010 for a period of 31 months. This term was then extended to 543 months and the project ended in December 2013.

Implementation Area

The project area encompasses the regions of South-eastern Anatolia, Eastern Anatolia Region and Eastern Black Sea. Project provinces were identified under NUTS 2 which assesses the level of development of provinces on the basis of specific socioeconomic and other criteria.

The Eastern Anatolia Region is divided into 4 sub-regions according to NUTS 2 which encompasses 15 provinces in total. In each region, provinces that are most developed in social and economic terms are identified as growth centres (to serve other provinces in the same sub-region). In respective regions, these provinces are Erzurum, Kars, Malatya/Elazığ and Van.

In the Eastern Black Sea Region there are 6 provinces and the growth centre is Trabzon.  The GAP Region is divided into 3 sub-regions with growth centres as Gaziantep, Diyarbakır and Batman.

The total number of provinces covered by the project is 30. Regional offices were set up in Şanlıurfa, Van and Trabzon. Following the earthquake of September 2011, however, the regional office in Van was moved to Muş.

Project Budget

The project consists of two components:

• Technical Assistance for Institutionalization (Budget: 2 million Euros),
• Grant component (3 million Euros) making the total budget 5 million Euros.

A. Technical Assistance Component:

• Establishment of Support Centres for Women and Women’s Civil Society Organizations (KYDMs). KYDMs will be established in Şanlıurfa, Trabzon and Van provinces. These centres will extend capacity building support women and their civil society organizations each with full-time personnel consisting of a Centre Coordinator, Centre Assistant and a GAP-RDA expert. The establishment of these centres was completed as of November 2010.  Throughout the project, Centre Coordinators visited over 130 organizations and 160 governmental agencies in 30 provinces. The areas of responsibility of KYDMs are as follows.

• Research and Investigation Activities: A survey was conducted in three regions in the period June-October 2010 to identify women’s status, priority problems and the position of governmental agencies and local governments with respect to gender equality and to identify the points of intervention.  In April 2010 the “Women’s CSOs Database” (http://www.gapkadinstk.org/stk.aspx) was created covering about 250 women’s organizations in three regions. The number of CSOs registered with the Database reached 304 as of January 2013.
• Trainings: Originally it was targeted to reach 2,930 persons through trainings in institutional capacity building. The actual number of people benefitting from trainings delivered turned out as 3,273 who were awarded their participation certificates. 8 training books were prepared covering the issues of Gender Sensitivity, Management of Civil Society Organizations, Violence against Women and Civil Society and Advocacy/Campaigning.

B. Grant Component:

36 women’s organizations were entitled to receive grants from the grant programme amounting to 3,000,000 Euros. The regional distribution of grant receiving women’s organizations is as follows: 13 in South-eastern Anatolia, 13 in eastern Anatolia and 10 in Eastern Black Sea region.