CWP Regional Strengthening Funds Idea's Repository

Through the Regional Strengthening Fund, CPA Canada Region has been able to continue to run their annual twinning program between young women and women Parliamentarians in all Canadian Branches.

The twinning programme allows young women aged 17 to 25 to experience parliamentary life by accompanying women parliamentarians in their parliamentary activities, to generate political interest among young women and to offer women parliamentarians an opportunity to have exchanges with young women regarding their concerns and interest.

Each legislature is responsible for the organisation of the twinning and the participant selection process

The CPA Tasmania branch requested funding to help facilitate the female student leadership event 'stepping up' in 2023. It is a leadership event targeted at female students in Year 9 (14-15 year olds). This age group is targeted because these students will be student leaders the following year and the event is designed to give them some form of tools they will need to 'step up' in these leadership roles, with a view to consider a career in politics and advocacy in the future. 

The program activities include role playing, panel discussions, observing parliamentary proceedings, networking opportunities and a familiarisation tour of the Parliament. The students have the opportunity to meet with and question women parliamentarians across the political spectrum and from both House and Parliaments.

The objective of 'stepping up' is to encourage young women to see themselves in political advocacy roles and to give them an understanding that Parliament can give women and communities a voice to make social, economic and legislative change.

The CPA Canada Region applied to the fund in 2021 to continue to fund the work of Dr. Jeanette Ashe to complete her study of parliamentary culture and how it impacts on the participation of women by undertaking a cross-jurisdictional gender sensitivity audit.

The audit was later released in 2021 as the Assessing Gender and Diversity Sensitivity at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. 

The goal of the GSP Cross-jurisdictional Review of Canada was to assess the level of gender sensitivity found within the formal and informal structures, culture, practices and norms of each Canadian Legislative Assembly and to make recommendations for more inclusive and representative political space. Furthermore, is also provided an initial snapshot into the institutional readiness of Canada’s parliamentary and legislative bodies to undertake a fuller GSP assessment and evaluation of the gender sensitivity within their institutions.

In 2021, the CPA Saint Lucia Branch hosted a two-day virtual seminar that discussed the various reports on the status of women in the COVID-19 pandemic and propose concrete country-specific ready-to-implement at high level actions that directly address the issues that continue to delay or set back the economic advancement of women in the sub-region.

The virtual seminar aimed to encourage the creation of a national caucuses of women parliamentarians in order to keep them up to date with the current data and literature on the status of women’s economic empowerment, and to encourage a sustainable mechanism that periodically engages women parliamentarians on the status of women. Again, the seminar sought to encourage the examination of discriminatory legislation with a view to enacting legislation to enable gender equality outcomes in national processes that is gender responsive and transformative.

CPA Branches could create and publishing a booklets and other resources celebrating women in Parliament. Such booklets could profile all the women been elected to their Parliament and celebrate their achievements 

Releasing such resources ahead of General Elections, could seek to help increase women's representation and participation in the elections and in Parliament.  

Member Branches and Regions could submit bids to support their engagement with a communications specialist to design a communications strategy for their Branch or Regional CWP, and to provide support and advice in delivering on it.

The British Islands and Mediterranean Region CWP sought to identify audiences and ensure regular, consistent and targeted communications which will raise the profile of CWP as an organisation and will amplify their messages to increase the representation of women in decision-making roles across the region. The target is for BIM Region CWP to have designed a fit for purpose communications strategy which amplifies messaging around its work to a targeted audience. 

This strategy developed by the British Islands and Mediterranean Region could be used as an example for other Branches and Regions to follow.

As a CPA Branch or Region, you could submit a bid to help finance an election sensitisation campaign. The campaign that would be conducted in several branches in the region would seek to increase women's representation in Parliament, identifying addressing and combating violence against women in all forms and promoting gender sensitive Parliaments in terms of numbers, organisation, working modalities functioning and capacities. 

This activity is linked to the broader CWP strategic plan second outcome of increasing the number of women in positions of leadership and decision making bodies.

The New South Wales Branch established a young women's network towards the end of 2023 with the intention of engaging with young women and women Parliamentarians.

The branch and the region seek to run a programme through the New South Wales Parliament to involve young women from other parliaments around Australia to exchange ideas and better understand the role of the CWP and women in parliament.

Each branch of the Australian CWP could nominate a young woman with Regional Strengthening Funds to be used to fly and accommodate them in Sydney where they would be hosted by the New South Wales Parliament for a programme intended to highlight advocacy and representation of women in politics. The programme would also seek to share experiences and guidance on how similar Young Women's Networks can be established in other Australian branches.