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>View discussions about this entry Country: United States
Organization: Center for Women Policy Studies
Sector Focus - Civil society
Year the initative began (yyyy) - 2006
Project URL: http://www.centerwomenpolicy.org
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence? - GlobalPOWER builds partnerships, across borders and over time, of women Members of Parliament and Ministry officials -- to use their leadership to combat traffiicking of women/children, to lead their Nations' responses.
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field? - We are the only global group bringing MPs and Ministers together from every Continent to confront trafficking/enslavement as a women's human rights crisis that demands their outspoken and courageous leadership as the policy makers, community leaders, advocates for women's human rights, and politically influential women they are.
Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing? - We convene GlobalPOWER programs annually to build partnerships among MPs/Ministers -- from North and South, from trafficking source, transit, destination countries -- so that they can take political and policy and legal action together. The GlobalPOWER program's success is reflected in the voices of the MPs who participate, their policy/political and public education activities at home, and their communication with each other for problem solving via our GlobalPOWER listserv.
How do you plan to grow your innovation? - We plan to increase the number of GlobalPOWER weeklong programs we convene each year, work with GlobalPOWER "alumnae" to convene regional and global programs in their own countries, and work with GlobalPOWER "alumnae" to implement policies/programs via their own parliaments/governments, and in partnership with local/national NGOs in their countries.
Do you have any existing partnerships, and if so, how do you create them? - We create partnerships with sister organizations who share our mission to ensure women's human rights and improve women's lives, including: CEDPA, International Women's Media Foundation, Inter-Parliamentary Union, for example.
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact. - Parliamentarians have the power to make and implement laws. Ours do so.
How many people have you served or plan to serve? - GlobalPOWER alumnae number only 20-plus but they serve their home constituencies and have an impact on their colleagues in Parliament; as a relatively new program [since 2006], GlobalPOWER has not been subject to a comprehensive impact evaluation, which is planned for 2010.
Please list any other measures of the impact of your innovation? - Impact evaluation of GlobalPOWER 2006-2010 is planned for 2010.
Exactly who are the beneficiaries of your innovation? - When a critical mass of activist Parliamentarians and Ministers are mobilized to take actions that only they can take -- to pass and implement and aggressively enforce laws -- the girls/women of their countries, and those trafficked into their countries, are the beneficiaries.
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)? - GlobalPOWER is financed through Congressionally Mandated Appropriation and through small foundation grants. Larger private funding is required and is being sought.
If known, provide information on your finances and organization - Annual budget;
Annual revenue generated; Number of staff: The Center's annual budget is $1-1.5 million. What is the potential demand for your innovation? - We receive three times as many GlobalPOWER applications from Parliamentarians/Ministers as we can accept and the demand is growing as word spreads.
What are the main barriers to financial sustainability? - Most funders/donors do not appreciate the importance of "advocacy" with those who have the actual power to make policy change and make it permanent -- rather than solely funding the equally essential civil society/grassroots advocacy efforts that are, after all, designed to help the rest of us influence the policy leaders who are the participants in GlobalPOWER.
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story. - Since the mid-1990s, we have worked with women state legislators in the USA -- to educate them about the impact of US foreign policy on women around the world -- and help them change their own legislatures' approaches to women's human rights while also influencing the US Congress. Our work on international trafficking focuses on US policy and we suddenly realized that we needed to bring our sister Parliamentarians together as well -- as US policy has an impact on their countries and they, through their new GlobalPOWER partnership, can turn the tables. Our women's human rights policy mission ties us to these MPs and their own constituencies.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material - I have been president of the Center since 1987 -- the concluding decades of a career in women's human rights and activism both inside and outside government, whether as director of the Women's Educational Equity Act program in the US Department of Education or as deputy director of women's rights at the US Commission on Civil Rights -- or as director of the Project on Equal Education Rights, my personal mission has always been to create spaces for a multiethnic feminist analysis of oppressions and to find ways to work with partners to create the egalitarian future we crave.
Contact Information:
Leslie Wolfe
President Center for Women Policy Studies (NGO) Discussions about this entry |
GlobalPOWER (Partnership Of Women Elected/Appointed Representatives)
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Dear Dana -- This is my second attempt at a reply, since I apparently accidentally deleted my previous effort, BUT, if you already received it, please ignore this one! Sorry to take so long to answer your request and am grateful for your interest in our unique program. The GlobalPOWER program agenda is designed to let Members of Parliament [MPs] -- whom we select for their leadership on women's human rights issues in their Parliaments, in their previous NGO work, and in their constituencies -- learn from each other and from the UN and NGO leaders who join us as part of the GlobalPOWER sisterhood. Much of the program is devoted to strategic planning for what the Parliamentarians will do when they return home -- both in their own Parliaments and through such inter-parliamentary bodies as the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), for example. Our MISSION is policy change -- to create the legislative mandates that will benefit NGOs and service providers who are working for and with trafficking victims; our STRATEGY is direct and ongoing engagement with Members of Parliament -- the people who have the power, right now, to pass these laws, promote/ensure their enforcement and funding for victim services and trafficking prevention programs, and who have the public platform/voice to speak out -- nationally and in their constituencies about trafficking as a women's human rights crisis. IMMEDIATE IMPACT of the first two GlobalPOWER programs [2006 and 2007]: GlobalPOWER MPs introduced and passed anti-trafficking/victim protection laws in Kenya, Tanzania, and Mexico. More to come!
Hello Leslie,
Could you include in your entry form a more detailed description of your impact? What exactly occurs at the GlobalPOWER programs? What are the outcomes?
Thank you for your response.
Dana Frasz
Ashoka's Changemakers