The last two decades have led to many achievements in advancing equal rights for women across the world. The Fourth World Conference in 1994 at Beijing galvanized various nation states in making policy pronouncements across various sectors like health, education, political empowerment to ensure equal rights and opportunities for women. One such was the passage of 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts in India which as mentioned above, provided for mass entry of women in local self governance institutions by announcing 33% reservations of seats for women. Encouraged by this many women’s organizations undertook the task of engaging with these local level women leaders to train and support them in their role as elected representatives.
KMVS as part of the WGWI-G (Working Group on Women’s Issues-Gujarat), a State level forum of women’s groups in Gujarat, became active on the issue of women’s political participation in Kutch and began its interventions after a brief study of the status and needs of EWRs who had come into positions of power in the first round of elections post 73rd CAA. The study identified many issues like information needs, training and capacity building needs, coordination between the three tiers of PRIs etc. which were critical for WERs and helped KMVS identify strategies for engaging on the issue.
The Panchayat Knowledge Cell undertook a range of activities like information dissemination, training and capacity building of WERs, organizing and collectivizing them, campaigns and advocacy on issues affecting women in governance and development from a gender perspective. Today PKC, known as “Sushasini” now, is a critical stakeholder and a resource agency in the field of gender and governance in Gujarat and nationally.
