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Overview

Updated - Tuesday 24 February 2004

Gender Mainstreaming in South Africa (GEMSA) is a three-year project that started in October 2001, which aims to equip a key water sector organisation in South Africa the National Community Water and Sanitation Training Institute (NCWSTI) to develop into a national resource centre for water supply and sanitation, with a particular mandate to mainstream gender in the sector.

A step by step approach
The project is designed in three stages:

  1. Expanding staff capabilities and developing awareness raising and training modules and materials, together with NCWSTI
  2. Training of trainers in the three target provinces Limpopo, Kwazulu Natal and Eastern Cape and gearing up NCWSTI as a sector resource centre with a focus on gender mainstreaming
  3. Consolidating the first two steps, and providing support to provincial trainers to reach out to key sector actors, primarily at local government levels, to introduce gender-sensitive approaches in water and sanitation services development and support.

The project is now in its final year. Many initiatives have been successfully concluded in all three phases of the project, many of the objectives of the GEMSA project have been achieved, but challenges remain.

Funding
The GEMSA project is one of a number of initiatives being funded within the South African Masibambane programme, which aims to provide access to safe water and sanitation for 2.5 million people in the country's poorest communities, and to support and strengthen the water and sanitation services sector in the country as a whole, paying special attention to gender and environmental issues. It forms part of the contribution made by the Netherlands to the Masibambane programme under the Water and Sanitation Services sector wide approach.

Partners
The GEMSA project involves a number of key partners who, together with IRC and NCWSTI, form the GEMSA working group. The role of IRC is to provide technical support and help in developing staff skills and capabilities. The project is coordinated by NCWSTI, which also manages its sister project, Gender Awareness Raising South Africa (GARSA) a Department of Water Affairs and Forestry project, started in 2002, that aims to build awareness and support among senior decision makers at national and provincial levels for the work being carried out by GEMSA.

Contacts

For more information contact Peter Bury at IRC (use contact form)


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