F.a: Promotion of Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Lalitpur

General

Poor women from deprived communities are not in a position to access loan from banks or other financial institutions or financial service providers due to lack of physical collateral. The poor, indigenous women and girls are exploited from various forms of discrimination. Therefore there is a comprehensive need to build the capacity of deprived poor women to increase their access to financial capital with low interest rate. The local government bodies have not fully owned and realised the importance of wome n’s participation in planning process and providing justifiable share of resources to the women in their location. Strengthening cooperatives and their linkages with local bodies, including Ward Citizen Forum and Citizen Awareness Centre (CAC) are requir ed to increase women’s access to resources and services. Most of the women still lack legal ownership of their land. Cooperatives still lack adequate knowledge and skills to develop strong linkages with market actors for enterprise development. Lack of v ocational skill training and micro entrepreneurship skills among women and out of school youth girls, denial of women to property rights, gender based discrimination and women’s right violation justify the need to implement this project in Lalitpur distr ict of Nepal. The overall objective of the project is to improve women’s economic and socio-cultural status. The specific objective is to develop and strengthen women-led local institutions for promoting economic, social and cultural rights of poor and m arginalised women communities in Lalitpur. Activities: • Establish and strengthen two women cooperatives • Establish a cooperative federation or a network of women cooperative • Conduct cooperative education camps• Establish and strengthen District and Village Land Rights Forum and conduct joint land ownership campaign • Evidence-based advocacy to improve women’s access to land• Income generation through enterprise development• Technical/vocational education to the most marginalised out of s chool youth girls • Provide business and career counselling services to girls/women • Strengthen Local Government’s capacity to promote socio-cultural rights of women• Strengthen Citizen Awareness Centre and Ward Citizen Forum • Develop and broad cast Public Service AnnouncementRights-holders /beneficiaries: 5 000 women and girls mainly from the poor indigenous and Dalits communitiesImplementing partner: The Lutheran World Federation Nepal (LWF Nepal).