Signing Ceremony Between Oxfam and UNDP with MoWA

Oxfam and UNDP signed an agreement to support the three years’ “Leading the Way for Gender Equality (LWGE)” program with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) today (Feb 22).

The three-year program, with a total budget of almost 3 million dollars starting from 2018 to 2020, aim at achieving three outcomes: To Institutionalize gender policies effectively and consolidate organizational reform of MoWA with inclusion of most marginalized groups of women and girls, 2. To promote public behavioral change through mobilization of young people and educational institutions, media sensitization and enhanced public outreach of MoWA and 3. To increase number of and capacities of women in politics and decision-making positions and strengthen feminist leaderships.

“This program is to strengthen the mechanism to promote gender equality in a systematic way with MoWA as the coordinating body and with meaningful participation from stakeholder,” said H.E. Dr. Ing Kantha Phavi​, Minister of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in her welcome remarks.

Ms. Solinn Lim, Country Director of Oxfam in Cambodia said in her remarks: “I’m very pleased to be part of this important event where Oxfam renew our formal commitment as a key strategic partner of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA), to deliver Oxfam’s sub-national level programs on Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE), Ending Violence Against Women and Girls, and Women Leadership, under MoWA’s three-year program.”

“MoWA has been very inclusive and I can share countless examples of the collaborative spaces you have provided for dialogues and partnerships with civil society organizations,” she added. “I am sure we all agree that MoWA’s coordination leadership is extremely important for all of us to contribute to fighting against discrimination against women and girls in Cambodia in a sustained way.”

Solinn also highlighted two important examples of past achievement. One was the leadership of MoWA in setting the right tone on Media’s Code of Conducts and launched a training on “Violence Against Women and Girls for Media Reporters” for 33 media organizations in collaboration with the Ministry of Information and the Club of Cambodian Journalists. The other was the 2018 directives from Samdech Prime Minister during last week’s Annual Status Review led by the Cambodian National Council for Women which has shown the royal government’s commitment to prioritize the nation’s investment on gender equality and MoWA’s agenda.

“There’s great opportunities here for us to have MoWA work closely with Ministry of Economic and Finance to clearly make the economic case and show the policy direction necessary to seize the opportunity of fully engaging both sides of the population into the productive economy,” said Mr. Nick Beresford, UNDP Country Director.

Oxfam will continue to prioritise an investment in Cambodia not only on women empowerment but also focusing on the empowerment of all types of vulnerable groups such as: People Living with Disabilities, LGBTQI, Indigenous and Ethnic Minorities, Women Facing Exploitation and Abuses and/or Violence, Age Discriminated Groups notably the young and elderly. This is our commitment to Cambodia to contribute to the royal government’s agenda to promote equitable growth by ending poverty and reducing inequality.

H.E. Dr. Ing Kantha Phavi​, Minister of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (third left) thanks Mr. Nick Beresford, UNDP Country Director, Mr. Samuel Hurtig, Swedish Counselor and Head of Sida and Ms. Solinn Lim, Oxfam Country Director, and talks about joint partnership opportunity. Photo: Samnang Hour/Oxfam