Women leaders demand participation in projects' approval team

The government of the Central African Republic should appoint women to a male-only Ministry of Planning committee charged with vetting projects for submission to donors, a former government minister, Lucienne Goddot, told said on Tuesday. "It is difficult to get a project presented by women's NGOs approved for funding [by the committee]," she told IRIN. Goddot, 57, was speaking in the capital, Bangui, at the end of a two-day workshop for 50 women leaders, organised by the Resaux Centrafricains des Femmes Ministers et Parlementaires, an association grouping 32 former female ministers and members of parliament. She was social affairs minister for six months in 1981, under former President David Dacko who died last week after an illness. Since the Ministry of Planning's committee comprised only men, Goddot said, women's NGOs in areas such as farming, small trade, small-scale rural banks and education on the HIV/AIDS pandemic had difficulties accessing funding for their projects. The ministerial committee examines development projects before approving and submitting them for government and donor funding. The workshop for the women leaders, organised with the help of the UN Population Fund, set up five commissions to review the problems women face. With commissions on education, reproductive health, poverty, food security and gender, "we want to make strong recommendations to the government and to international partners," Goddot said. The women leaders who attended the workshop made recommendations aimed at gender equality, especially in decision-making. Goddot said that there had not been more than two women in each government since independence in 1960. Social Affairs Minister Lea Doumta and Commerce Minister Hyacinthe Wodobode are the only women ministers in the present 28-member transitional government led by Francois Bozize. Goddot said that to obtain four more seats in the National Transitional Council, the country's law making body, women "met president Bozize to protest". Previously, they had only two delegates in the 96-member council. "Women represent less than 10 percent in the administration," Goddot said. She added that the existing national and international instruments on gender equality were not applied, and that the first step would be to organise all the women’s associations in the country into one structure to make their voice heard. "We do not want to replace men, but to accompany them," she said.