“Women Friendly Cities United Nations Joint Programme” was initiated in 2006 with the aim of mainstreaming gender equality in planning and programming processes of local administrations. In parallel with this process, the Women Friendly Cities UNJP aimed at empowering local administrations and women’s organizations for establishing strong collaboration among them. After the completion of the 1^st phase in 2010, the 2^nd phase of the United Nations Women Friendly Cities Joint Programme was initiated in April 2011.

Project Objectives

The main aim of the project is to create an atmosphere forming a basis for the creation women friendly cities by including gender equality in the planning processes of the local administrations as a result of the local activities carried out with women NGOs, grassroots organizations, governmental institutions both on national and local levels.

• To increase the capacities of local administrations (governorships and municipalities), in order for them to include gender equality activities in their planning processes.
• To develop the capacities of women’s CSOs that focus on gender equality to strengthen bilateral cooperation between domestic women’s CSOs, grassroots organizations and local administrations.

Expected Results of the Programme

Expected results of the United Nations Women Friendly Cities Joint Programme are listed below:

• The empowerment of local administrations and the relevant ministries (most importantly the Ministry of Interior), with regards to providing local services and developing policies that take gender equality into consideration.
• The development of gender sensitive strategic planning and budget preparation approaches in project cities.
• Scaling up the results obtained from the six project cities in the First Phase to the district level through the rights-based/neighbourhood level models.
• Increasing the susceptibility towards gender equality in project cities through widespread awareness-raising activities; increasing the capacities of civil society organizations that are active in the designated project cities with respect to the issues of gender equality and advocacy; the development of participatory mechanisms by the local administrations and women’s CSOs within the designated project cities in order to improve the quality of life for women.
• The development of a gender sensitive urban planning approach in the project cities.
• Preparing legislative recommendations by assessing the current legal framework (with the aim to maintain the sustainability and the operation of the gender equality mechanisms that have been developed as part of the Programme), and sharing these recommendations with central authorities.

Project Activities

1. Provincial Situation Analysis
2. Capacity Building for Local Institutions
3. Increasing Capacities of Women NGOs
4. Setting up Local Mechanism
   • Provincial Women’s Right Coordination Committee
   • Equality Units (Governorship, Provincial Special Administration, Municipality)
   • Equality Commission (Municipal Council, Provincial Council)
5. Developing Local Equality Action Plans
   • Identification of problems
   • Developing plans with the local stakeholders
   • Approval of the plans on the local councils and integrating them with the strategic plans
6. Implementation of Local Equality Action Plans
   • Grant support
   • Development Agencies’ support
7. Informing the public
   • Women’s organization on neighbourhood level
   • National events
8. Legislative Work on National Level

Project Partners

• 

• 

• 

• 

Ministry of Interior (MoI) as the beneficiary, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as the implementing agencies and Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency (SIDA) as the donor are involved in the project.

Project Cities

Project was first launched in İzmir, Kars, Nevşehir, Şanlıurfa and Trabzon provinces in the first phase and then expanded to also cover Adıyaman, Antalya, Bursa, Gaziantep, Malatya, Mardin and Samsun provinces.