The goals of the Foundation are to:

Assist women to acquire greater control over knowledge, resources, and institutions.

Facilitate women`s greater participation in political processes and governance.

Transform social attitudes and behaviour for a responsive and supportive social environment to address women`s concerns and development.

Develop an enabling environment with strong civil society organisations to support women at the community level and district levels.

Undertake advocacy with public servants and public representatives for gender responsive development planning, supportive legislation and increasing women`s access to government programmes and se rvices.

Develop and strengthen networks of civil society organisations for strengthening citizen participation in governance.



STRATEGY

The Foundation has three major programme areas:

Information to build capacity for decision making and action.

Capacity building of civil society organisations for participation in social change and governance.

Advocacy for developing an enabling environment for women`s empowerment and participatory democracy.



These programmes operate simultaneously at:

the community level

the intermediary level of civil society organisations

the macro decision-making level of policy makers and legislators



Information is accompanied by capacity building of individuals and groups of information communicators and social mobilisers. The capacity building not only develops their capabilities to work within their own communities but also to understand and interact within the larger social matrix.



This Capacity Building Programme operates at various levels:

At the community level, it facilitates groups of women to play a more active role in problem solving and decision making.

At the intermediary level, it enables activist NGOs and CBOs to enhance their capabilities for social mobilisation.

At the decision-making level, it sensitises government and political party key persons to issues of concern for women and makes inputs into the development programmes for women.



The Advocacy Programme has five basic elements:



To pick up key issues and run campaigns for these at all levels.



To organise conferences for rural women to enable them to share experiences and hold dialogues with policy makers, planners and political representatives to influence government programmes.



To meet regularly and build systematic contacts within the legislatures and bureaucracy so as to provide them timely information and to assist them in making interventions in the interests of women in legislation and development programmes.



To conduct gender awareness meetings and workshops to better sensitise decision-makers.



To set up "watch" mechanisms to systematically monitor decisions which affect women. This will generate information which will feed into other advocacy activities.