Urban municipality of Manjakandriana
Urban municipality of Manjakandriana
The urban municipality of Manjakandriana is located 47 kilometers from Antananarivo. With approximately 202,771 inhabitants, the commune has 15 primary schools and 3 secondary schools spread across 24 villages. The main sources of income for the population are agriculture, livestock farming, and forestry. Following the launch of the municipality's gender action plan, gender and GBV committees have been set up in all villages in the municipality. The municipality has also built a market square and recently improved road infrastructure.
Introduction
The council of Manjakandriana worked with Gender Links since 2009 when Gender Links started research on Gender and Local Government “At the Coalface” in Madagascar. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed on 7th May 2010. The key outputs have been the buy in for the different stages for the Centre of Excellence. A Gender Action Plan was developed and approved. The verification was associated with a meeting at the town council for the presentation of the summit. Hundreds of people were coming for the verification process.
The mayor of the Manjakandriana is very engaged in the implementation of the council’s gender and GBV action plan. It was pointed out that the meeting would take place not only with the Mayor but with high officials of the locality as well so that focus group discussion could take place. Among the participants there were doctors, nurses, trainers and stakeholders in different fields. The Council has been formally involved with Gender Links when research was done for the book gender and local government. In March 2010 Manjakandriana formed part of the Malagasy delegation of the Gender Justice and Local Government Summit.
The gender concept is so well understood that Gender Links can be proud that both men and women not only work hand in hand in this locality but stereotypes are being challenged. “There is no male job or female job. With the support and all the training we got from Gender Links, there are now six women head of fokontany (village) and four women deputy head of fokontany on the 24 fokontany that we have in the locality” said the Mayor proudly. “As far as we know there are no HIV positive people in our community. We do lots of awareness and advocacy campaigns and encourage people to do voluntary testing. But if ever we have to care for HIV positive person be it a man or a woman Members of the committee for the fight against GBV, Manjakandriana, during a meeting we will do it with pleasure,” said some of the male participants.
“As shown by the notes of meeting there is a monthly meeting on Gender Based Violence and both women and men participate as they want to make sure that GBV is a crime against their community”. The Councils gives training to women on production of honey, embroidery and over and above the big annual fair where women can sell their products special stalls have are made available to women throughout the year. The Council has recruited a community police as there is no police station in that locality but the council works in close collaboration with a shelter for survivors to make sure that the survivor does not go back to violent relationship until the problem has been resolved.
“Survivors are encouraged to talk and there are now more and more women coming forward to talk about their traumatic experiences.” The main challenges are water, toilet and electricity. Some of the houses do not have these three basic necessities and families have to share toilets among themselves. The Mayor cannot agree more that women and children suffer more when there is a lack of these basic facilities. She is therefore taking prompt action to provide slabs so that families can dig holes and make their own toilets. The performance of the council may be improved through the funding of the association of women’s projects and the strengthening of monitoring and evaluation.
