The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is funding the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) program to set up a project supporting women’s political participation in the 2009 and 2010 Afghan elections.

The goals of the project are to:

• Increase Afghan women’s participation in public life, encourage them to exercise their political rights as decision-makers, and increase their effective participation.
• Recruit and train candidates, and provide them access to materials and office spaces.
• Support a 2010 election legal analysis and a 2009 lessons learned analysis.
• Advocate for quota seats to be distributed as set out in the Afghan constitution.
• Provide civil society networks with training in gender-sensitive elections monitoring.

Ahead of the 2010 election, UNIFEM will:

• Conduct networking and capacity building events at the UNIFEM-administered Resource Center for Women in Politics in Kabul.
• Establish mentoring relationships, while pairing incumbents with newly entering female elected officials.

The Women as Decision Makers project has achieved significant results to date. The female candidates in the 2009 elections were supported with:

• A campaign hotline.
• Research and on-the-ground elections monitoring by women activists.
• Media coverage monitoring of women's issues.

Successful candidates received further networking support.

• United Nations Development Fund for Women