Round table in the framework of the project "Improving the knowledge of the female community on gender budgeting in the western regions of Kazakhstan"

Round tables were held in Atyrau on February 25 and in Aktobe on February 27 within the framework of the project “Improving the knowledge of the female community on gender budgeting in the western regions of Kazakhstan” with the assistance of the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives. (The organizers were partners of the Echo NGO Galina Chernova (Center for the Environmental and Legal Initiative Globus Atyrau), Gulzhan Tulemisova (Public Association Shamshyrak Aktobe)

Representatives of civil organizations voiced the problems of local women, which must be solved with the help of state bodies and to attract extractive companies. The most pressing issue is the lack of kindergartens, secondary schools equipped with toilets, access to water, assistance to single mothers and large families, the need to conduct training courses for women. Civil activists expressed the view that there has long been a need to draw up a local budget with a gender perspective, namely to take into account the needs of women. Participants developed recommendations for akimats and extractive companies.

RECOMMENDATIONS for:

Regional and city akimats

1. To ensure wide dissemination of information to the public concerned, including women, on ongoing social infrastructure projects through investment by extractive companies; provide mechanisms for public participation in the selection of projects;
2. Conduct on a regular basis an assessment of the needs of the population, taking into account women, for certain projects in the following sequence: planning - approval of the project - execution - reporting on the project;
3. To publish in mass media and social networks announcements of extended meetings on the issues of social investments of mining companies, as well as reports on completed social infrastructure projects in Atyrau and Aktobe regions;
4. To publish the texts of memoranda with subsoil companies operating in Atyrau and Aktobe regions;
5. To ensure comprehensive control over the spending of budget funds allocated by subsoil companies within the framework of the program of social infrastructure projects, involving independent experts from active NGOs, women leaders of civil society, the Council of Elders and civil activists in the commission for spending funds on these projects;
6. Conduct gender expertise of projects, including social infrastructure projects of subsoil users; publish
   the results of the examination in the media and mass media.

Extractive companies:

1. To publish the text of memoranda on social infrastructure projects concluded with state bodies;
2. Publish full information on sites for each social infrastructure project, indicating the name, place and timing of implementation, the name of the contractor or recipient, the amount of the project.
3. To develop a system for assessing the quality of work performed within the framework of social infrastructure projects not on the basis of compiled reports and technical documentation, but on the basis of the opinions of beneficiaries, including the opinion of the female population of the Atyrau and Aktobe regions and indicators of real improvement in people's quality of life;
4. To ensure the development of projects and programs taking into account the gender approach and gender budgeting.