CO-influencing women#s movement building The Building Capacity and Influencing Women#s Movement Building for Gender justice in Uganda is a one and a half month project to support institutional strengthening in gender analysis and engendering Results Based Frameworks. It will further strengthen civic action and voices to speak out on GBV/VAW and enhance women#s movement building through participation in a global forum # the UN-CSW.The project is framed on the conceptual understanding that GBV and other affronts on women#s rights are underpinned by unequal power relations between women and men through patriarchy. In order to address the existing gender inequalities, it is critical to take athree pronged approach: address policies and legislation to provide a legal framework for women#s rights; eliminate harmful social norms and enhance women#s movement building through support to Women#s Rights Organisations. The project intends to contribute to tackling these issues through building staff capacities at Oxfam in Uganda to obtain the requisiteskills required to strengthen programming on women#s rights, contribute to a national discussion on GBV/VAW through convening a Citizens Parliament forum and participate in a global forum on women#s rights reflection, strategizing and movement-building #the UN CSW. Key targets of the interventions include: Oxfam in Uganda programme staff who will apply the skills to strengthen programming with partner organisations, the media and the general public through the Citizen#s Parliament and Partner organisations and advocacy targets through participation at the UN-CSW.

Apart from the urban locations for the training and forum, the project will also be implemented in the refugee settlement of Kyaka, Kyegegwa District where about 30,000 refugees mainly from the DRC area hosted. This will be the site for the People#s Parliament that will focus on VAW. Oxfam in Uganda has been involved in the refugee response in Kyaka since April 2018 when there was a large influx of refugees from the DRC. Through our gender and protection work there has been a high degree of sensitization on the issue of VAW and the referral pathway. It should however, be noted that many of the female refugees have experienced a high degree of violence in the DRC (in neighboring Kyangwali Settlement it is reported that 10% of the female refugees experienced sexual violence while in the DRC). This is significant when one considers the institutional breakdown in the DRC with women consistently violated. It is important to break this cycle of violence and begin to inculcate the principles of gender justice among the refugee population. Participation at the CSW also builds on the on-going work on the care economy through which in roads have been made to policy makers to prioritise unpaid care work in generation of statistics, planning and budgeting. A  workshop will be convened at the CSW with a partner organization # Uganda Women#s Network for purposes of sharing our ongoing work on the care economy, getting input on learningfrom other parts ofthe world and development of strategies to strengthen our work.

From a context specific perspective, Uganda is known to have good policies in place to address gender inequality; however, implementation remains weak. This was documented in a Dec 2018 country gender assessment conducted by Uganda Women#s Network. The study attributes this situation to several factors including: high levels of corruption and lack of funding of critical services such as health, education, agricultural extension and judicial services. In addition, there is a mindset inertia where duty bearers have not appreciated the need for radical changes aimed at gender equality. This is as a result of heavily entrenched culture and tradition that relegates a woman#s position. Despite the many positive policy documents in place and some progress so far made towards gender equality; many facets of inequality between men and women; and boys and girls persist. The most critical gender equality in Uganda is in regard to: rights and access to economic opportunities/productive resources, education, health, participation in governance and access to justice. These issues speak directly to the thematic areas that Oxfam in Uganda is focusing on: Governance and Accountability; Resilient Livelihoods; and, Humanitarian Preparedness and Response. Oxfam#s theory of change demonstrates that through deliberate engendered actions in these areas, we will achieve a critical change in the lives of women, men, girls and boys