Empowering women and girls affected by migration for inclusive and peaceful community development

The International Public Foundation "Roza Otunbayeva Initiative" is implementing the project "Empowering women and girls affected by migration for inclusive and peaceful community development" in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), UN Women and the International Labor Organization (ILO), NGO "CDA" and Alliance of Trainers and Consultants with financial support from the UN Peacebuilding Fund. The overall objective of the project is to empower women and girls affected by migration for inclusive and peaceful community development through the realization of the following main outcomes: • Target communities recognize and support women and girls’ role and contribution to peacebuilding and community development. • Women and girls in communities affected by migration are empowered politically, economically and socially to protect their rights and participate in peaceful community development • National and local authorities apply socially inclusive approaches in policy making and implement gender-responsive peacebuilding at the local level in communities affected by migration This joint project proposes a comprehensive approach to promote an enabling community and policy environment conducive to women and girls’ empowerment and their active engagement in peacebuilding and inclusive community development in communities affected by migration and prone to conflict in the Kyrgyz Republic. The project will contribute to the empowerment of women and girls most vulnerable to migration, by improving their participation in peacebuilding and inclusive community development, enhancing their access to socio-economic opportunities and building capacities-of women and girls. The target groups include: 1) girls and women vulnerable to forced migration (unemployed, divorced women and girls vulnerable to forced migration/potential future migrants); 2) returning migrant women and girls (who may be potentially forced to re-migrate). As the vulnerabilities created by migration of Kyrgyz women and girls are in most occasions a consequence of harmful gender norms shaped in society which eventually contribute to the decrease of women’s agency in community development, the proposed project will be crucial and catalytic to undertake actions towards changing community attitude by promoting positive norms in support of women empowerment and recognition of women migrants’ role in peaceful community development. The project will not only target migrant women and girls, but also men and boys as well as relevant community members in target locations. The project is fully supported by the Kyrgyz authorities as it aims to accelerate the implementation of the 2017-2020 Peacebuilding Priority Plan (PPP) while addressing the outcomes of the review of the National Action Plan (NAP 2016-2017) on UNSCR1325 implementation, that was conducted in 2018. As such, this project will address identified critical gaps in the peacebuilding process in the Kyrgyz Republic by tackling conflict risks related to the lack of inclusion and economic opportunities for a particularly vulnerable group of women migrants in Kyrgyzstan, otherwise qualified as economic violence against women. To achieve these overarching objectives, Project works with Governmental partners (State Migration Service, State Agency for Inter-Ethnic Relations and Local Authorities, Ministry of Labour and Social Development, National Parliament, Forum of Women MPs of the Kyrgyz Republic, local self-government authorities in six target municipalities) and non-Governmental partners (Women-peacekeepers network, local partner NGOs, Federation of Trade Unions, JIA Business Association, Public Fund “Alliance of Trainers and Consultants” (BDS-ILO-SIYB)). The project is being implemented in 4 regions of Kyrgyzstan: Batken, Jalal-Abad, Osh and Talas regions.