UN Women’s second BRIDGE Gender and Election Workshop for Provincial Participants in the Solomon Islands

UN Women in partnership with the Women in Shared Decision Making (WISDM) and the Ministry of Women, Youth, Children and Family Affairs Women’s Development Division ended a week long training workshop on Gender and Elections successfully on 4^th March, 2011.  The five days workshop held from 28^th February – 4^th March was hosted by the Malaita Province Women’s Development Division with administration support from UN Women.  The training workshop was led by three BRIDGE Facilitators: Sarah Dyer (Workshop Facilitator), Clera Rikimani (Semi-Accredited Facilitator) and Audrey Manu (Accrediting Facilitator).

The workshop brought together 28 participants, including the Deputy Premier of Malaita Province, elected members of the Malaita Provincial Assembly, church leaders, civil servants, local NGOs, community and women leader representatives from across Malaita Province. 

The training was officially opened by Honorable Suiabaea, the Premier of Malaita Provincial Government.  In his opening speech, Hon Suiabaea highlighted the importance of understanding the theme “Gender and Elections” and encouraged participants to relate the theme to their involvement and participation in the electoral processes and in advancing gender equality work.  He also focused on the importance of the BRIDGE training workshop as an opportunity for all participants to learn about the principles of electoral issues using a gender lens.  

The five days training went really well with many positive feedbacks received from the participants.  Real life experiences in relation to Gender and Elections were also shared which made the sessions lively, engaging and very relevant to the local 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.