Rural municipality of Bemasoandro

Bemasoandro is a rural commune that belongs to the district of Antananarivo Atsimondrano. It is the rural commune close to the capital. Agriculture, livestock, the briquetterie and trade are the main occupations of the population. Before the intervention of Gender Links, women’s issues had not been taken into account by the community: women are margainalized, men monopolized all the domains. The majority of the municipality’s activities had not been sensitive to gender and all projects not taking into consideration the strategic needs of women. 

Since 2012, the municipality of Bemasoandro has been chosen as a Gender Links Centre of Excellence. She benefited from the project 'Women and local elections', a project initiated by Gender Links and the UNDP in order to achieve the objective of the SADC protocol concerning the participation of women in politics. Then as planned in the process, the municipality of Bemasoandro was able to complete steps 01 to 10 of the center of excellence process. 

Among the major enterprise activities, one can mention the development of a gender action plan with mention of the allocated budget, and what is more, is known to all. The municipality also has conducted awareness and information sessions on the objectives of the SADC. 52% of the population are women, which is why the municipality is convinced of the importance of integrating gender into its policy with a view to effective participation by women in the development process. The integration of the approach is important for this municipality. It increases the capacity for influence (political, strategic) of the 

“The promotion of gender, a priority for the municipality of Bemasoandro” men and women in the management of local affairs so that the services provided are based on the perceived problems, and that the solutions come primarily of the population concerned.

Although the municipality has only recently joined the Centre of Excellence initiative, it has a policy to promote the equal participation of women in business communal. She was able to implement activities to convince the community. The approaches and the methodologies used have brought a lot of change in the common to know: the awareness of parents to enroll their daughters, the mobilization women in taking responsibility, training on the fight against violence based on gender, the empowerment of women through the creation of activities generating income, the protection of mother and child health.

The existence of the action plan initiated by Gender Links has brought a lot of change to the community level especially at the level of men’s behaviors who more and more favorable to the participation of women and they collaborate with their wives in the process of educating their children. 

It is important to note that this municipality differs from the others thanks to the existence of an action plan on gender, the constitution of a gender committee and especially the appropriation of the Fokontany chiefs in the processes of combating violence. Different barriers prevent the integration of gender, such as insufficient means (financial, material), lack of time by most of the population wanting to participate in the different events (16 days, March 08), the lack of communication, the problems of isolation, the stereotypes generated by habits and customs. 

The performance of this municipality could be improved by strengthening monitoring and evaluation, the improvement of detected weak points, the continuity and development of activities already undertaken, the capitalization and capacity building and the organization of sharing and exchange sessions with the other municipalities.