U.S. Embassy Funds Projects on Grassroots Democracy, Women’s Power

Hanoi, November 26, 2008

The United States Embassy today awarded US$38,738 to two Vietnamese non-governmental organizations to implement two projects that will promote grassroots democracy and women’s participation in the policy-making process.  These grants are part of the U.S. Department of State’s Small Grants Program.

The Center for Development Assistance (CDA) will use $18,750 from the funding to implement a project to strengthen the participation of local people in the implementation of the Grassroots Democracy Ordinance in Nam Bung and Nghia Tam communes of Van Chan District, Yen Bai Province.

CDA will hold training workshops and carry out communication programs to raise local authorities and people’s awareness on the content of the Grassroots Democracy Ordinance, to strengthen local people’s participation in local decision making process and to strengthen the information exchange mechanism between local authorities and local people.

The remainder of the funding, US$ 19, 988, was granted to the Center for Education Promotion and Empowerment of Women (CEPEW) for a project to strengthen women’s participation in policy-making process.

CEPEW will conduct training courses, group discussions and communication programs to achieve the following objectives: raising awareness of gender equality, women’s rights and grassroots democracy implementation for local leaders and people; building capacity of local leaders and People’s Council deputies to further democracy in policy-making process; and building capacities of participation and advocacy for members of communal Women’s Union standing and executive committees.