UNDP project “Legislative and Institutional Capacity Development for Women’s Empowerment in Uzbekistan” organized the event in collaboration with the Women’s Committee of Uzbekistan, OSCE Coordination Project in Uzbekistan and the Institute for the Studies of the Civil Society.

The main goal of the event is improvement of potential of women’s wings of political parties, introduction of gender mainstreaming into programmes and actions of political parties, improvement of women’s participation in politics.

The agenda of the training includes theoretical and practical sessions. Representatives of political parties discuss state policy on women’s support, main goals and targets of the parties, work of parties with women, legislation of Uzbekistan on election, and international agreements.

During the trainings, participants are expected to develop action plan for women’s wings during and between elections. The action plans will focus on determining place and role of political parties in political development of the society and their participation in the democratization processes.

Similar trainings have been held in Urgench, Samarkand and Karshi for branches of the political parties in respective regions. Following the training in Namangan, a series of educational events will be organized for the female members of the political parties in Tashkent. This will be a concluding event in the series of trainings that cover all 14 regions of Uzbekistan.

The UNDP project “Legislative and Institutional Capacity Development for Women’s Empowerment in Uzbekistan” is implemented in cooperation with the Women’s Committee of Uzbekistan. The project is aimed at supporting and building capacity of the government, civil society and mass media in reducing the gender gaps via raising awareness on and implementing the recommendations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee) to Uzbekistan that were given in August 2006.

The CEDAW Convention adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly is an international document on the rights of women. Uzbekistan was one of the first Central Asian countries to ratify the convention in 1995, and has reported four times to the CEDAW Committee on its implementation.