BENIN: Women Call For No More Delays In Decentralisation Plan

By Ali Idrissou-Toure Reprint | | Print |

Ali Idrissou-Toure

COTONOU, Sep 24 1999 (IPS) - A network of women’s non-governmental groups have criticised the delay in the implementation of Benin’s decentralisation plan, announced by officials five years ago.

“We lament the fact there’s been a huge delay in beginning decentralisation in Benin,” said Solange Legonou, coordinator of the Programme to Integrate Women in the Process of Sustainable Development (PIFED), the umbrella group for four Beninese NGOs.

According to Legonou, four of the five laws necessary for the decentralisation plan to go into effect were voted on by the National Assembly a year ago and promulgated by the president. Only the fifth law, the one regarding the electoral law for municipalities, is still stalled in Parliament.

“People are beginning to wonder about the delay on voting for this final law, which is holding up the entire decentralisation process,” added Legonou, who is a jurist and sociologist.

Once put into effect, decentralisation would mean that most of the prerogatives for the administrative and financial management of local communities, which now depend on the central government in Cotonou, would be handed over to Benin’s 77 administrative districts.

Therefore, it is necessary to decentralise government for local communities to create and manage their own resources. This will give the localities greater self-sufficiency and facilitate better and more sustainable development, Legonou said.

The four NGOs have been working for quite awhile at involving women in the decentralisation process, and are anxious to see it come to fruition.

Last August, the PIFED organised a four day workshop in Cotonou to train both NGO officials and organisers on “the participation of women in the decentralisation of Benin”.

The workshop aimed to give the NGOs, which have day-to-day contact with the population, a “better understanding of the place and role of women in the decentralisation process.

“In addition, it afforded women with an opportunity to better grasp the language of decentralisation, so they could explain it better and pass the message along to all the women out there,” said the programme’s coordinator.

“For we women, decentralisation is a windfall, an opportunity we’re being offered by the country to jumpstart sustainable and organised development,” according to Legonou.

“Our programme’s main mission is to give women the chance to speak their minds and find their rightful places in development projects,”she added.

“Women have always contributed to the development of the country, but without being recognised. If they can be involved in the decision-making process, they’ll be better able to master the ins and outs of decentralisation and they’ll be able to take part with both pride and enthusiasm,” Legonou said.

After the training workshop, the PIFED began a month-long public opinion poll throughout Benin to “take stock of women’s problems related to decision-making processes at every level – at home, in the community, and in the nation,” explained the programme coordinator.

The programme intends to draw up a platform which will be based on the results of the poll. “This platform will be a tool that the NGO network will use as a basis for telling political decision- makers what women’s vision of decentralisation is”.

Legonou said that 70 women’s groups scattered throughout Benin were interviewed by teams created especially for conducting the poll.

This information will be presented during a special workshop, where each of the polled groups will be represented, and to officials and organisers from the network NGOs.

The PIFED programme, according to the coordinator, is the African branch of an American programme called “Global Women in Politics”(GWIP), which had a special interest in starting a project in Benin.

The four NGOs working in PIFED are Dignity for Women, the African NGO and Association Network for the Integration of Women (RIFONGA), the Research Organisation for Human Development (ORDH), and the Organisation of Women for Energy Management, the Environment and the Promotion of Integrated Development (OFEDI). The programme is financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).