Musharikat Monthly Report January 2016

The project is sponsored by the Office of Democracy and Governance and is implemented by DAI. The project's main objective is to empower women and girls in Afghanistan by addressing the obstacles that limit their full participation in society. In January 2016, the project achieved several milestones. All five offices have been established and are now operational, with three women Regional Directors hired to lead the Mazar, Herat, and Jalalabad offices. The Deputy Regional Director of Kandahar started on January 31st, and a female Deputy Regional Director for Kabul has been selected. The project team continued to engage with key stakeholders, including CSOs, government counterparts, and other potential partners, to introduce the project and build relationships. The project hosted its first event, the Emerging Women Advocates Forum, on January 27th. Thirty-three young women leaders from twenty provinces worked together to identify and explore the priority issues that impact their ability to exercise their rights and fully participate in Afghan society. Participants came from as far away as Badakshan and Noorstan, with women traveling up to three days to attend the program. The forum was held at the Musharikat office due to security threats in Shar-i-Naw, allowing the activity to go ahead and generating cost savings for the project. The project also conducted a Staff and Partner Orientation and Teambuilding Workshop from January 19 to 21. The workshop grounded staff from all regions and partners in the program's technical approach, Year 1 Work Plan, AMEP indicators and targets, and strategic communications and messaging. The workshop included interactive, role-playing sessions on communicating core project messages to stakeholders, regional analysis, and activity planning break-out groups. The project's Outreach and Advocacy team continued gathering data on CSOs and activists for entry into the project's stakeholder database. To date, the project has collected information from nearly 1,000 CSOs and activists from 25 provinces. The Advocacy and Outreach team has also been working closely with the Grants team to design an Expression of Interest (EOI) to identify potential CSO and activist partners to support the planning and organization of the Musharikat National Summit in May. A comprehensive desk review and mapping exercise to understand the landscape and status of women-related gender policies, laws, and regulations is in progress. The Public Policy team has been meeting with other USAID and donor projects to determine which organizations and CSOs are working on policies, laws, and regulations concerning gender equity and women empowerment issues to avoid duplication, share experiences, and identify opportunities for partnership. The ICT team continued work on the development of an SMS messaging application in coordination with project subcontractors. The application aims to provide a platform for women and girls to access information and resources on gender equality and women empowerment issues. The project's Regional Implementation team has been working closely with the ICT team to ensure that the application is tailored to the needs of the target audience and is accessible in all regions of Afghanistan.