The “Citizenship Initiative”, has been started and funded through the UN Women Global Programme “Gender and Democratic Governance: Delivering Services for Women.” The Global Programme is a joint initiative of the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the United Nations Development Fund Democratic Governance Group, Bureau for Development Policy. Its purpose is to enhance women’s influence and participation in the governance of service delivery. The focus of this programme which is grounded in country level practice is on building a body of knowledge about the challenges and solutions to the gender sensitive governance of public services. This programme is a frame of reference for the Initiative which has received support from Austria, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Ireland, Japan, Australia, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the European Union (EU).
The importance of the Initiative stems from its responsiveness to the needs and condition of Egyptian women, as well as from its fostering a culture of inclusion that is a critical to a democratic transition that is founded upon the rule of law, equal citizenship, and respect for human rights and dignity. The possession of ID cards will provide women with “a voice in the political arena in terms of the decision-making process and the shaping of policy.” In this sense, the Initiative is a model for gender sensitive mechanisms of service delivery and outreach to marginalized communities, especially to poor and illiterate women.
The joint program between UN WOMEN, UNDP, Social Fund for Development (SFD), Ministry of Sate for Administrative Development (MSAD), and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) was signed on the 15th of November 2011
MSAD’s mandate is to enhance the efficiency of governmental machinery so that it can deliver quality public services to citizens. The vital statistics system in Egypt is a centralized one with MSAD being the repository of all national data bases
MSAD added different implementation models, implementing through Social Fund of Development, National Council Women, governorates, and NGOs
The “Your ID Your Rights” implementation follow these steps, analyzed and designed by the project team, to assure the efficiency of the project goals, to target correct women group.
A coordination Unit (CU) was established within MSAD and is headed by a general manager, and manned by a project management team, IT and financial and legal affairs staff. This CU is responsible for communicating and coordinating the input of relevant government stakeholders, including governor offices. In that context local authorities are proving to be invaluable allies providing access to the villages and local units as well as providing logistical support as needed. In addition a dashboard portal is being developed MSAD to include information on the women who have registered as well as basic information on their economic and social status. This dashboard will be used as a tool for managing the project, and for outreach and monitoring purposes
The communication campaign and awareness raising strategy was formulated to include Public Services Announcements (PSAs), jingles, songs, documentaries, printed materials (banners, sticker posters and t-shirts) as well as a social media campaign on Facebook and Twitter, and a documentary showing testimonials from women who obtained their IDs through the Initiative.
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n no more than 200 words, illustrate what makes the initiative unique and how it addressed the problem in new and different ways. List the creative and innovative approaches that allowed for its success?
The women citizenship initiative employs strategies, mechanisms, models, messages, and forms partnerships (e.g. mobile registrars, ambassador groups, field-testing of citizenship campaign messages, local unit employees, community leaders, etc. ) that help marginalized women access their basic citizenship rights in the following ways:
• The outreach to women relied on door to door and face to face interaction with the women, also the initiative provides a free of charge service for the targeted who cannot afford the cost of the ID card ($2.5)
• A Coordination Unit inside MSAD has been established, to effectively manage the implementation of activities and progress
• Different outreach models were developed to ensure that the initiative is efficiently delivering ID cards to the targeted women.
• A power mapping exercise is conducted in each governorate to asses and identifies the best / most suitable implementing partner, which ensures a swift ID issuance process.
• The use of social media tools for the campaign (PSAs, jingles, songs, media monitoring, Twitter and Facebook) is successfully reaching a wide range of people and making the project extremely visible.
A Dashboard Management System and Data Base have been developed to contain information( marital status, address, disability status, breadwinners or not, etc.) about the women targeted throughout the ID cards registration and issuance process to even include those who were not eligible to issue their ID cards for a later targeting and assistance.
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