Woman in leadership phase 2

43 female sub national authority representatives from Pursat and Battambang, including the District Deputy Chief and District and Commune/Sangkat Councillors, met at Raksmey Battambang hotel’s meeting hall to show their courage and commitment to capacity building and to gain new knowledge during a 3-day training on “Women in Leadership-Phase 2”. The workshop was held by the Cambodian Civil Society Partnership (CCSP) in cooperation with Cambodia’s leading Independent Development Policy Research Institute (CDRI) from June 8th to 10th 2011.

Article 35 of the 1993 Cambodian constitution provides that “Khmer citizens of either sex shall have the right to participate actively in the political, economic, social, and cultural life of the nation. Khmer citizens of either sex shall have the right to choose any employment according to their ability and to the needs of the society. Khmer citizens of either sex shall receive equal pay for equal work”. It also guarantees measurements to prevent and eliminate the discrimination against women.

CCSP and CDRI worked together to conduct a training course on “Women in Leadership-Phase 2” following the successful completion of the 1st training in July 2010. Councilors from District/Municipality and Commune/Sangkat were selected from two provinces to enhance their current competencies. This workshop aimed to promote gender equality between women and men in performing their roles and to foster women’s active participation as provided by the constitution, and in response to the government policy of strengthening decentralization and de-concentration. The training material aimed to contribute to this through strategies like gender mainstreaming, conflict resolution in the community, meaningful communication and relationship building among working groups,

The training course consisted of many important topics concerning the female councilors daily work performance such as understanding conflict, causes of conflict, conflict resolution, teamwork, communication strategies and particularly gender awareness in the decentralization and de-concentration process. All topics were presented by a CCSP trainer and two trainers from CDRI. Another CDRI researcher presented real experiences on gender and decentralization for participants to better understand the issues.

In addition to the training on these topics, CCSP and CDRI organized a field visit for the 43 participants to learn from the experiences of two communes/Sangkats: Toul Ta Ek in Battambang city and Samrong Khnong in Ek Phnom district, Battambang.

After the field visit, all participants agreed that the main factors influencing the success for the two communes/Sangkats are to promote the women’s roles, to secure the acceptance of the women’s decisions, sharing and teamwork, citizens’ participation and support, good cooperation with stakeholders, clear planning and working with transparency and accountability. As for the challenges, they were perceived as lack of technical skills and limited capacity although the officials are determined to fill all gaps.

At the end of the 3-day training, all participants said, through the representatives from the two provinces, that they were very pleased and looked forward to joining the next training on Women in Leadership - Phase 3, which will be organized by CCSP in the week 4 of August 2011.