The UN Women’s Gender Equality in Political Governance (GEPG) programme successfully hosted a three days BRIDGE Implementation training workshop from August 1 – 3 in the capital of Solomon Islands, Honiara. 

The Implementation workshop is the first of its kind that focuses on providing guidance to individuals and organizations responsible for designing and setting up training courses that use material taken from BRIDGE curriculum and with a focus on gender and elections in the context of governance and democracy. 

The Implementation workshop is in response to the needs identified by Women in Shared Decision Making (WISDM) working group and women’s machinery for support to increasing women’s political participation and representation, as well as supporting the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

The facilitators for the implementation workshop included Ms Leotina Harihiru an accrediting BRIDGE facilitator, Mr Francis Iro from the Solomon Islands Electoral Commission and Ms Audrey Manu from UN Women.

The workshop was attended by 22 participants from both the provincial and national level (Honiara) and represent stakeholders like the NGOs, national women’s machinery, Community Based Organizations (CBOs), Faith Based Organizations (FBO), Solomon Islands National Teachers Association (SINTA), Electoral Commission and government.  The participants are trainers within their own networks and organizations and were mentored under UN Women’s GEPG BRIDGE programme since 2009. 

The three days workshop was like a refresher course for the participants who have already attended a BRIDGE Gender and Election module, a Train the Facilitator course and have either co-facilitated at a Bridge Gender and Election workshop in country or have facilitated other sessions using the BRIDGE methodology.

Throughout the sessions participants were actively engaged, contributed well to the topics and showed great team spirit which was very encouraging.  The topics included:  Planning and Scoping for BRIDGE with a gender lens; Sustainability of Programs and Assistance; Financial Planning, Evaluation and Proposal analysis and implementation.   The workshop provided an avenue and opportunity for the participants to share their BRIDGE experiences, networks and strategize on ways to further progress BRIDGE and gender training in their context.

UN Women’s Gender Equality in Political Governance (GEPG) Programme is a five year programme and is committed to delivering its capacity building activities using BRIDGE methodology to assist women and relevant stakeholders.