KARACHI, June 9: The overall goal of Women Political School is in line with national objectives and international commitments for working towards the attainment of gender equality in political sphere and empowering women in public offices so that their issues and concerns are raised in policy agenda and addressed through public policy.
This was said by the Sindh Minister for Women Development, Dr Saeeda Malik, at the certificate distribution ceremony of a training course on Project Design and Management, organised under the Women Political School Project, here on Thursday at the National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA).
The minister reminded that the Women Political School Project commenced in Sindh on February 14 this year, following appointment of its staff by the UNDP, which was working with Sindh Women Development Department.
Purpose of this working relationship is that after completion of the project it would be handed over to the Women Development Department for continuation of its activities and for making it sustainable, she said.
Secretary of the department was said to be the ex-officio project director.
According to Dr Malik the project has various components, one of which is capacity building of institutions, departments, mentors and councillors adding that its one subcomponent is project design and management training for the staff and officers of social welfare, women development and local government and rural development departments.
Purpose of this training apart from strengthening the capacities of the officers is also to develop a support group of officers to guide the councillors in designing project proposals.
“The newly elected women councillors after election will be provided training, enabling them to take part in policy dialogue”, the minister said reminding that budget preparation and project development had been the difficult areas for the women councillors.
This, she said was noticed during the previous project and therefore, in this project emphasis had been put on such areas.
The minister also said that the NIPA and other training institutions had been partners in the project and it had been decided to actively involve NIPA and ensure that this partnership must continue in the future as well.
She said that in the history of Pakistan it was for the first time that a large number of women had become councillors against the reserved seats.
“In urban areas, however, these councillors did not face so many problems as being faced by the councillors in the rural areas because of poor literacy level,” she said reiterating that it had become government’s responsibility to train these women councillors and enable them to deliver in council session — raise women issues and to propose programme and projects to address these issues.
According to the minister the very training was the first steps towards full fledged training programme for women councillors.
She congratulated the staff and officers of government on their successful completion of the three-day training course.
“After the very training you have become members of the family of the Women Political School,” she stressed.
Dr Malik thanked NIPA Director-General, Mohammad Zakir, and his faculty as well as resource persons for making the event meaningful.
She also expressed her gratitude to the representatives of the UNDP and the federal project officers who had specially flown in from Islamabad to attend the ceremony.—APP
