BRIDGE workshop in Amman sponsored by AIDME for its “Women’s Policy Center” regional project

The project entitled “Arab Women’s Policy Center (WPC)” to be implemented jointly with six partner local organizations in six different countries in the MENA region (Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen) during 2013-2016.

Through the WPC project, AIDME is working to address some of the challenges facing women in the MENA region especially women political participation. The program overall goal is to increase women’s active participation in public spheres in MENA region for sustainable and gender equitable changes in policies and practice to ensure that the voices of women at all levels, including the poorest and most marginalized, are heard.

The program incorporates a number of activities to be implemented with the direct and indirect beneficiaries. The aim of the incorporated activities is to accomplish the program’s four outcomes. One of these four outcomes is focusing only on election and BRIDGE “Capacity of women leaders increased on governance and election. In order to achieve this goal in diverse specifications of each country out of the six target countries, AIDME will implement specific local initiative for each country.

The Jordanian Minister for Political Development and Parliamentary Affairs – Mr. Khaled Al-Kalaldeh inaugurated and launched the WPC project in Jordan in June 2014. WPC local partner organizations in Jordan and women beneficiaries were part of the launching event.

In order the WPC program to achieve its planned outcomes especially its outcome one “Capacity of women leaders increased on governance and election. To increase women participation on election not only as a voter and candidate but also as a policy maker, BRIDGE proofed to be the most effective means to do so. The purpose of BRIDGE program within the regional project is to build the capacity of a group of women leaders on governance and election in order to play an active role in policy making to increase women political participation in MENA region

BRIDGE—Building Resources in Democracy, Governance, and Elections – is an internationally recognized curriculum designed by and for election administrators to better understand the electoral process. It is a partnership between 5 leading organisations; International IDEA, UNDP, the United Nations Electoral Assistance Division (UNEAD), IFES and the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).

The facilitators were

1. Hassan Hussein (BRIDGE facilitator)

2. Ahmed A. El-Wahed (BRIDGE facilitator)

3. Mireille Ndayra (BRIDGE facilitator)