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Women Empowerment for Peace and Development
Network (WEPD) it was also known as Sudanese Women’s Civil society Network for
peace (SWCSNP) has been involved in SuWEP since its inception in 1997 with the
support of the Netherlands Government as one of the working Committee of the
Initiative. The purpose of the network is to facilitate the participation of
Sudanese women in the peace process in Sudan. WEPD it’s a non-governmental,
non-political and non-profitable network. It was composed of 62 NGOs/CBOs and
consultant members, recently the number of members increase to 68 Sudanese NGOs
working for women empowerment in rural and urban areas. It is registered under
the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Humanitarian Commission for Aid (HAC).
WEPD envision having Sudan where all people
enjoy sustainable peace, justice and freedom. The vision breakdown into
different missions stated by the group into recognizing the important roles and
contributions of women in the peace movement, facilitating women's work towards
their own peace agenda and increasing the actual participation of Sudanese Women
in the peace process and influencing them on the process. Vision and mission of
WEPD has been interpreted in activities involve advocacy, mobilisation, capacity
building through training in various topics like conflict resolution peace
building, peace culture, Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) , election matters,
and reconciliation.
The objectives of the network are:
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Create the enabling environment for the
empowerment of Sudanese Women in the civil society (WEPD) to play a crucial role
in peace process.
¨
Create a joint forum of Sudanese Women to share
their experiences and initiatives in promoting peace.
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Participating in international, regional and
local reveal events.
¨
Identify the different pattern associated to
the peace process for example formulation framework.
WEPD network is targeting both male and
female in urban and rural areas of Sudan with focusing on youth at universities,
camps and localities.
The network has received fund and support
from different donors. Recently the network has funded the Recovery Money from
the Royal Netherlands Embassy (RNLE)- which is consider the main donor of SuWEP
groups- after resuming its support for couple of year. The fund covered the
administrative support for the last two year 2004 – 2006. In addition to the
support from RNLE, the network has been receiving fund from other donors for
instance on CPA, website development and workshops at universities they received
support from DAI, also a grant from IGAD to continue in income generation for
women via a revolving fund. Other work on the CPA had been done with
cooperatives in North and South with support from Peace Direct, and UNIFEM has
supported the network for leadership ToT in Khartoum and Kassala with youth and
women. The World Bank has funded outreach work in Omdurman and Gedaref. The last
donor funded project was with Norwegian Church Aid, and proposals are now
waiting funding at Netherlands grants for SuWEP groups, DED and UNIFEM.
The WEPD Network office is located in House
No. (18) Square (1)/ww/Khartoum (3),
Northern El Gorashi Garden - Buio Kwan
Stree, Khartoum, Sudan. The contact people are the executive committee
chairperson Ms. Sumaya El Bashier and the General secretary Ms. Naiema Agabna.
The office consists of 3 rooms, a training
hall, and a kitchen. Two deficient computers are present, a projector and a
screen, a camera, a photocopier and furniture obtained through the DAI in kind.
There is no paid staff, the managing
director and secretary stopped their work. Network members rotate to be present
in the office for six days a week. Twice per month there is a meeting for
members. The network has a bank account with 3 signatories (manager, secretary,
finance) and works with requisition forms and supporting documents. Daily book
keeping is done manually, and a computer is used for reporting against the
budget.
The WEPD network members are participating
at different levels internationally, regionally and locally. A series of
trainings conducted under the management of Salmmah Centre for SuWEP groups in
different areas. (see annex no. 2) These trainings designed mainly for all SuWEP
groups to capacitate their skills in technical topics to enable them dealing
with the upcoming issues as well as grants form the Netherlands Embassy. The
outcome of the training changed the network’s ideas of organisational management
in the sense of the network structure, governance, staff, and leadership. It
also influenced ideas on how to deal with grant management financially,
monitoring and reporting within the network, office management (how to report on
meetings).
Concerning capacity needs, the network
indicates on the job training in project design and project monitoring,
financial accounting, donor relations. In addition to, other skills like
English language, computer and internet skills and website development.
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