Geographical Locations of Already Established Assemblies		In response to emerging challenges facing Kenyan women, the KWPC has embarked on a re branding effort, which seeks to enhance its role at the grassroots level while also continuing to operate at the national level. In keeping with its grassroots thrust, KWPC has established Women Regional Assemblies in these selected districts across all the eight provinces of the country, a strategy geared towards enhancing efforts towards increased representation and participation of women in decision making at all levels of governance. Background In Kenya , the Caucus has come to realize that the existing strategies of mainstreaming Affirmative Action in decision making organs and processes, have not yielded remarkable fruits in spite of the immense resources expended. Therefore, the need to revise strategies to emphasize capacity building of women leadership right from the grassroots cannot be gainsaid. Local Authority structures, being so close to the grassroots, have already played, and still have untapped potential to play, a great role in building the capacity of women leadership. This is why the Caucus chose to build the capacity of women right from the grassroots level through the Women's Regional Assembly structures.

The Concept

The complicated system of government allows limited participation by women. As such, the only alternative is to develop optional structures that can feed back onto the formal government structures on what decisions and actions we want the government to make on issues that affect us as women.

Assemblies common characteristics exhibit the spirit of collectivism, volunteerism, shared vision and networking amongst all its members at the grassroots level.

The assembly devolves around the administrative boundaries from the location, division to district level. The assembly is a platform of amplifying women voices and indeed a vehicle on time to take them to decision making structures at all levels of governance.

The Structure of the Women's Regional Assembly

Modelled on the Rwandese Miji Kumi, the assembly has the following structures:

Location level, Ward level, the Division level, and the District level.

The Women's Regional Assembly consists of the following:

•  The District Convener

•  The Divisional or Constituency Sub Convener

•  The Chairpersons of various thematic committees: The Committee on HIV/Aids Control, Economic Empowerment, and Good Governance,

•  The membership, which is open to all women in the region, regardless of race, tribe, or political party.

Membership of the assemblies is open to all individual women regardless of their affiliations to Community Based Organisations, Sub Regional Non Governmental Organisations, National Non Governmental Organisations, Professional organisations, their professional callings or social status. As a platform for all women, the assembly does not discriminate against any woman.

Objectives of the Women Regional Assemblies

The main objectives of the Women's Regional Assemblies are:

1. To bring women together into solid units to effectively conduct lobbying and advocacy with the provincial administration, especially the District Development Committees (DDCs), with a view to mainstreaming gender equity into the development plans, processes and activities in their respective districts.
2. To empower women to work together with all stakeholders, such as development agencies, donors and non-governmental organizations, engaged in development projects at the grassroots.
3. To build the capacity of grassroots women to participate efficiently and become recognizable stakeholders in all development processes.
4. To capacitate women to monitor public expenditure on social and economic projects with a view to blowing whistles on corrupt practices therein.
5. To reverse the enduring marginalisation of women in development and decision-making levels, processes and organs.

The Mandate/Role of the Women's Regional Assemblies

The Caucus allowed the Women themselves to identify the core areas of concern, which the assemblies should commit themselves to address. The following areas were given the front burner:

•  The Control Prevention of the spread and ravage of HIV/Aids. The assemblies will become platforms for capacitating women to take frontline positions in the fight against the scourge. A related concern is the promotion of positive cultural values in order to achieve this aim.

•  The Economic empowerment of women to enable them to be self-sufficient with a view to reducing poverty levels among them and the society in general.

•  The enhancement of good governance and the cultivation of women's political voice. This is based on the realization that politics is concerned with the distribution and management of national resources. Thus, good governance informed by women's participation in decision making, should in turn lead to economic empowerment of women.

Elsewhere, women also identified the following concerns to be addressed by the Women's Regional Assemblies:

•  The Control and Prevention of Early Girl Child Marriage,

•  The Control and Prevention of Female Genital Mutilation and

•  The Control and Prevention of Gender Based Violence

Achievements of the Assemblies so far

Since the establishment of the Women's Regional Assemblies project kicked off in October 2003, remarkable impact on the ground has already become evident:

•  The Provincial Administration has been forthcoming and more willing to listen to the concerns of women than before as evident by their positive support during the launches and in their subsequent addressing of women's concerns afterwards,

•  The District Development Committee and the District Social Development Department have opened up and are giving valuable information to grassroots women and offering to help improve their welfare. They were hitherto, invisible and unapproachable!

•  Men have come out strongly to support the women's regional assemblies in all districts they have been launched. This important because we need to bring men on board in order to effectively achieve the objectives of the assemblies.

•  Women who were hitherto afraid to talk about their concerns are becoming more bold and forthright in petitioning the authorities over failed promises and mismanaged development programmes at the grassroots level.

•  There has been an increased media attention and focus on the issues raised by the Women's Regional Assemblies, a positive development, and

•  Women's Regional Assembly Officials are already gaining national stature going by their recognition in various national fora that have been held across the country.

What you can do

The Caucus hopes that with more funding, the strengthening of the assemblies will be a significant force that propels women to positions of leadership. Women's visibility and effective participation at all levels of decision making at the district level, will finally launch more women into the higher organs of decision making in the country.

You can make this happen by clicking here.