Press Release by CPDI
16 September 2021 – Islamabad: Centre for Peace & Development Initiatives (CPDI) and Women Parliamentary Caucus (WPC) of the Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) fostered their partnership by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to advance Gender Equality, Women’s Empowerment, strengthening women role in legislative businesses with a renewed focus on strengthening Rule of Law and local bodies’ elections in the KP province. The joint efforts will support the government institutions in drafting effective policies and action plans, build capacity and enhance accountability mechanism to protect, enable and promote rights (social, economic, political, and access to justice) of marginalized groups, especially women, including those from the newly merged districts.
During the signing ceremony, Mr. Mehmmod Jan, Deputy Speaker and Patron in chief of WPC said, “While having the same mandate as that of women’s empowerment, the partnership between CPDI and WPC KP will further strengthen the pro-women legislation and implementation of those laws across the province as well as the deprived tribal belt.”
Mukhtar Ahmad Ali, Executive Director, CPDI acknowledged the efforts of the WPC in furthering the pro-women laws and women education in KP and shared that the joint efforts will be pivotal in realizing and safeguarding the rights of women and girls. “In the past, CPDI supported the WPC in strengthening KP’s local government system and contributed services to the department for better implementation of policies and overcoming the challenges faced by the department. Now, we are taking a step forward by advocating for effective implementation of laws and policies.”
Under this MoU, CPDI will support the WPC on the implementation of KP assembly standing committee on local government, committee on expansion of pro-women laws to the NMDs and lead advocacy on strengthening legislative businesses; enhance service delivery for promotion of good governance through the rollout of capacity building of the legislators and staff; undertake gender research, draft pro-women laws, develop position papers, resolutions, declarations and reports.
Moreover, CPDI and WPC will work together for increased awareness-raising and capacity building of local government representatives, WPC members, parliamentarians, and political parties to better understand the challenges in strengthening rule of law and undertake concerted efforts to overcome those challenges.
“Together we can make a change. The development sector and Government are the two wheels that run the reformative system. The partnership with CPDI will aim to achieve a robust response in the area of gender equality, good governance, better legislative businesses and women empowerment”, said Mahmood Jan, Deputy Speaker KP Provincial Assembly.
