A Review Team of three
experts from Norway arrived on 30 June to Norwegian Representative
Office to the PNA to do a Gender washing review. Part of the program
was to meet with some of the NRO partners to know more about the
gender policies the organization is conducting. AMAN is one of the
main partners; the team was keen to meet.
A meeting was held with the
review team on
Tuesday, 1 July, at AMAN’s offices in Ramallah.
Its
purpose is to
undertake a screening of AMAN’s work and how it incorporates women’s
rights and gender equality within its programs.
The review
team included Ms. Randi Lotsberg- Adviser at NORAD and head of the
team, Ms. Marit Sorvald- Sociologist at Nordic, Bjorg Skotnes, in
addition to two representatives from NRO; Ms. Grete Lochen- Deputy
HOM and Ms. Raheek Renawi-
Project Advisor. The team was welcomed by the AMAN’s
Executive
Director, Ms. Ghada Zughayar, and PR and
fundraising officer, Ms. Sama Khalil.
The review team showed interest in AMAN’s work and programs.
Specific questions were asked bout gender and if AMAN has a policy
within the organization and further with their partners to ensure
gender applications and projects?
Ms.
Zughayar
gave an adequate elaboration about AMAN’s aim, purpose, work and
programs. The following was clarified;
-
She assured the team that although AMAN does not have a written
gender policy, but it sure applies it. More than 63% of AMAN’s staff
is women. All projects are managed by women who are responsible of
key roles such as; planning, overseeing implementation, evaluation
and are in charge of male subordinates…
-
No Gender gaps exist in the content of work, responsibilities;
salary scale and procedures between women and men.
-
Although, women only constitute 28% of the board of directors but it
is headed by a powerful female, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi.
-
All of AMAN’s programs equally target both males and females and
many training directly addresses women.
-
AMAN continues to encourage women researchers and trainers to get
involved in its programs and activities.
In
her presentation, Ms. Zughayar highlighted the corruption profile in
the Palestinian society and explained the close connection between
the root causes of corruption and its ramifications on the Palestinian people’s security
and peace particularly women. She pointed out how the continuing
Israeli occupation inhibits any Palestinian progress towards
implementing reforms and rule of law.
Conclusions
and Recommendations:
-
A specialized study on the impact of corruption on women will be
conduct by AMAN.
-
A forum of women to address corruption issues from a gender
perspective and to build women’s capacities in strategizing and
implementing interventions against corruption “Make women’s Voice
heard”.
The delegation expressed their satisfaction with the work done by
AMAN so far and praised the key achievements in terms of creating
anti-corruption culture among the Palestinian public. They stressed
the importance of the up-mentioned activities to be taken by AMAN
and that they would be looking forward to receiving update on the
findings of the study and the progress of the forum.
