Female deputies of Kyrgyz National Parliament commit to women empowerment and improved access to water and sanitation

A high-level stakeholder meeting took place on 28 May 2015, at the National Parliament (Jogorku Kenesh) of Kyrgyzstan in the framework of the Forum of Women of the Jogorku Kenesh

27.07.2015 |

The meeting focused on issues of access to water, sanitation and hygiene in local communities, rural areas, schools and kindergartens, and empowerment of women’s economic rights. The meeting presentation was organized with support of WECF’s women empowerment project and UNICEF.

Chairman of the Coordinating Council (of the Forum of Women of the Jogorku Kenesh of the AinuruAltybaeva) said that the deputies of the Kyrgyz Parliament, jointly with representatives of non-governmental organizations, in May visited different regions of the country and saw the life of the local communities, the problems of drinking water and sanitation conditions on the grass-roots level. "We held 20 meetings with the residents of Osh, Issyk-Kul and Chui oblasts. During the visits, it became clear that children's social institutions have a lot of problems. So we decided to discuss these issues and take appropriate action," she said.

During the meeting, the recommendations on results of expert work and visits have been presented to meet the challenges of drinking water, sanitation, economic empowerment of women. Anna Kirilenko, the expert of the EWA project, noted that 20% of child care centers in the country do not meet the sanitary requirements in terms of clean water. "If you do not take action now, the situation may worsen. There is a state industrial control of water, but it was left out of the scope of public control," she said.

Prior to this high-level stakeholder meeting, these issues were raised during the two visits of female deputies to Osh, Issyk-Kul and Chui regions supported by WECF’s women empowerment project and UNICEF. Deputies were joined by representatives of the Kyrgyz Ministry of Health and local authorities. The main organizers of the field visits were Social Technologies Agency (STA), Alliance of Women's Legislative Initiatives (AWLI), Central Asian Alliance for Water (CAAW), Public Association of Rural Women (Alga), Kyrgyz Alliance for Water and Sanitation (KAWS), UNICEF, and Ecological Movement BIOM. More than 20 meetings took place with representatives of local authorities, deputies of local councils, district education departments, experts, directors and teachers of schools, parents and students, as well as members of rural associations of drinking water, female community leaders, female farmers and other villagers. For an impression, check out the video here.

As a result of the high-level stakeholder meeting, the specific recommendations were approved for amending the legislation and improvement of practice in the sphere of access to water, sanitation and economic empowerment of women.

Media coverage of the visits and Parliament meeting, by:

AKIpress
AWLI: on 28/05/2015 (first and second web item that day), 27/05/2015, 10/05/2015 and 09/05/2015
BIOM
CA-News
Central Asian Regional Water Network (CAR@WAN)
Jogorku Kenesh: on 28/05/2015 and 27/05/2015
Вечерний Бишкек

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