About the Project

This project aims to empower women’s organizations (WO) to contribute meaningfully and sustainably to Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) and DDR-related processes in Cameroon, with an emphasis on reintegration and reconciliation. WOs will be empowered through supporting the establishment of working relationships with the National Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Committee (NDDRC) and other organizations working on DDR and DDR-related processes in Cameroon and in the Lake Chad Basin (LCB); strengthening their technical knowledge and institutional capacities; and providing them with financial means to participate in coordination structures and implement specific interventions. This will be so that in two years following the project start date, DDR processes in Cameroon will have fully mainstreamed practices for women’s empowerment and coordination with women’s organizations (WOs).

This initiative is implemented by Local Youth Corner (CSO) and Association de Lutte contre les Violences faites aux Femmes Far North Region of Cameroon (CSO) with support from the International Organization for Migration (UN), and UN Women (UN)

Objective:

The principal objective of the proposed project is to empower WOs to contribute meaningfully and sustainably to DDR processes in Cameroon. To do so, the project will work with WOs to build their capacities and provide them with the financial means to actively engage on DDR and DDR-related processes; support the NDDRC to continue their work towards mainstreaming gender equality and women empowerment, and engage with CSOs; and create and strengthen mechanisms for collaboration between WOs and the NDDRC.

Through Outcome 1, IOM and UN Women together with the NDDRC and Civil Society, plan to set up a transparent and clear methodology and timeline for the mapping and selection of women’s organizations to be empowered and have their voices heard in the DDR sphere, with selected organizations then having their capacities strengthened holistically to make them better equipped to overcome the key blockages to their participation in DDR coordination and implementation so far.

Outcome 2 then focuses on supporting these selected women’s organizations to contribute to DDR implementation in coordination with the NDDRC and coordination fora, including through the operationalization of a grant mechanism co-managed between the NDDRC, the UN, and civil society representatives that will allow selected women’s organizations to start working on reintegration and reconciliation priorities identified, using the added value of women’s organizations that use bottom-up, local approaches for greater results. WOs will be accompanied in the implementation of small-scale interventions at the community level to help limit potential negative backlash associated with WOs taking the lead on issues traditionally perceived as more masculine.

Finally, outcome 3 focuses on how through these established practices of the previous outcomes, the NDDRC may be supported in terms of policy development and capacity building to create long-term practices and frameworks for systematically engaging with women’s organizations and promoting gender equality, through the codification of good practices created during this project into a series of strategic documents, procedural manuals, and processes.