By Matilda Atieno
The Kisumu County Gender Sector Working Group (CGSWG), a collaboration with the County Department of Education and Gender sector and the State Department of Gender Affairs with support from partners, kicked off the sensitization and Mobilization forums for the sub-county committees at Victoria Comfort Hotel.
The seven days forums sponsored by KMET and Equality Now was aimed at aligning and integrating the CGSWG with the Intergovernmental Consultative Framework for Gender in the seven sub-counties of Kisumu. The meeting brought together stakeholders from various sub-county Community-based organizations with each of the Seven Sub counties meeting a day at a time.
The objective of the meeting was to engage members on Intergovernmental Consultative Framework for Gender, the structure of the Gender Sector-Working group and the formation of the integrated sub-county Subsector Gender-Based Violence Committee.
The role of Sub-County GSWG will include receiving and deliberating on annual work plans of each stakeholder for purposes of cooperation and coordination at the sub-county level, harmonize gender-related activities to avoid duplication, participate in the planning and implementation of Gender-related activities, ensure adherence to principles of gender-based budgeting and partnering with relevant departments in formulation and review of gender-responsive policies and strategies at the sub-county level to the ward level.
The CGSWG is guided by the four thematic areas including, Women in leadership and Decision making, Women in Peace & Conflict Resolution, GBV and Women in Social economic empowerment subsectors to steer the fight against GBV among other vices, in Kisumu County.
The forums also offered an opportunity to the participants to share the challenges, best practices, and lessons learned as a result of CBO’s experiences working to address Gender-based violence (GBV) and survivors’ health, well-being, needs and to prevent future violence during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The CGSWG is chaired by the County commissioner and co-chaired by the CEC member for Education ICT and Human Resource Development, Mr. John Awiti
