Using any national womens machinery in any country of your choice, asses their effectiveness in addressing some specific women right or gender inequality issue. Irrespective of what role they played or what problem was addressed. Be sure to use concrete examples and analyze the work using strength, weaknesses, their achievements, failures and make recommendations.

NATIONAL WOMENS MACHINERY IN CAMEROON

According to Melinda Adams, National Womens Machinery argues that the Cameroonian state has adopted the national machinery because it provides low cost international legitimacy, it attracts international assistance, the assistance fuels domestic patronage networks and the national machinery channels womens activism towards state delineated projects and goals. On the other hand, as defined by the U.N. national womens machinery is a simple body or complex organized system of bodies often under different authorities, but recognized by the government as the institution dealing with the promotion of the status of women.

Martin Luther King Memorial Foundation (LUKMEF) a non-governmental organization (NGO) is based on its CERF humanitarian project “provision of psycho social first aid notables to women, girls and boys in the SW/NW regions of Cameroon” with funds from UNFPA. The focus was on three different areas that is training community mobilizers on psycho social first aid, humanitarian principles and basics on protection mainstreaming.

LUKMEF is a people focused and people driven organization that gives physical (individuals) and moral (institutions) persons around the world, the unique opportunity to connect directly with those in real need around sub-Saharan Africa to make meaningful impact in the lives of individuals and whole communities. This LUKMEF is aimed at promoting peace, social justice and sustainable development in Cameroon since 1999.

CSO national forum in Cameroon is aimed at eradicating violence against women and girls throughout Cameroon. A national civil society mechanism to end violence against women and girls has been put in place. LUKMEF organized a 2days conference with funds from the UN Trust fund to end violence against women and girls. This conference was organized at the pan African institute for development west Africa (PAIDWA) Buea. It was equally organized under the theme of “improving standards in GBV service provision through better civil society organizations and service providers coordination”. The conference equally fought for the national and international standards as a strategic plan to end GBV articulated by the CEO of LUKMEF Cameroon, Christian Tanyi.

The frame work of a national forum gives holistic services, legal and psycho social support and the efforts of the government is to reduce GBV via education at the community level within the household. The conference witnessed the validation of the national minimum package of prevention and response services (MPPRS). It also received some statistics pertaining to gender base violence in Cameroon. HRH MOLIVE MOLUNGA laments on the cases of violence against women (VAW/G) especially in traditional settings and there is hardly a day she doesnt receive complaints from a woman on abuses she receives from her husband.

The conference also resolved in strengthening the role of traditional rulers and religious leaders in the fight to end violence against women and girls. Judging the situational analysis and current statistics presented at the first national conference, a monitoring and reporting app on gender base violence referred to as “Ops4women” was also presented to participants at the conference. The CEO of LUKMEF Cameroon has set a platform where survivors as well as those at risk can report cases without necessarily disclosing their identities. A referral system has been set up within the frame work of the conference to work as a team, will give various entry points for survivors to access services by Christian Tanyi.

From the presentations and knowledge gathered from the conference, many expressed deep appreciation to the organizer while pledging their commitments to the resolutions indicating the lessons learnt, are timely and will go a long way in enhancing GBV activities in their respective regions. LUKMEF Cameroon is thanked for its initiative they had so much to write home about and to impact my community especially with the introduction of the OPS4WOMEN app and its advantages in the digital world by NIGEL MBAYA a participant affirmed. More successes will certainly be recorded in the elimination of VAW/G through the national; territory as activists at the end of the first national civil society took the commitment to hold the event at least once every year to evaluate the level of progress on the fight to end gender base violence in all its forms in Cameroon.

The following are the recent projects piloted by LUKMEF Cameroon; the displacement tracking matrix, improving the protection of women and girls affected by the conflict in Fako division, Southwest Region of Cameroon, provision of psycho social first aid to Internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the NW/SW notably women and girls, SRH/GBV rapid needs assessment project, supporting IDPs and host communities, GBV/HIV-AIDS survivors, the hope center (supporting the safe space), rapid needs assessment in health, WASH, NFIs, food, GBV case management projects, only applicable where DRC refers a case to LUKMEF community agenda to end violence against women and girls, provision of food to IDPs and the host communities.

More than 25 human right activist received training on how to defend themselves and their peers in conflict areas and situations. Their focus was on female activist and the knowledge shared was of great importance to other activists. The training was triggered following the current social unrest in the two Anglophone regions, which has witnessed the loss of lives, properties and violence against human right activist as well as girls and women. The CEO of LUKMEF, Tanyi Christian urged participants to consider their security eminent. He cautioned them to ensure that the people they are investigating do not have access to their property, that is cars and office space. She continues by telling them the need to verify source of information before taking action puts the activist on wrong footing. Christian constitutes a network, through which they will reduce the use of resources and easy follow up in difficult situations.

The rational training of the CEO of LUKMEF stated that customs and traditions primarily puts women at a vulnerable position, mentioning that many parts of the country are currently experiencing armed conflicts between the military and armed civilians; thus needs to empower women considering they are targets and most vulnerable. Christian emphasizes on the need to build the capacity of female activists. Njoya Beatrice expresses satisfaction with the training, articulating that “I use to have fear on how to successfully tackle the ills but I have learned much”. She says she was interested on the facts that she had to consider her security first, investigating facts properly using digital and social media, by being prepared to carry out the works of an activist. The Southwest regional delegate of Islamic studies, Matonga Hamza said that its a wonderful workshop, appreciating the efforts of LUKMEF and Action Funds for Africa for the laudable initiative, highlighting the security measures. Participants vowed to protect their colleagues in the interiors and ensure complete collaboration in the execution of their duties.

LUKMEFs commitment is to endeavor to impact communities, eliminating violence against women, enriching talks on some major differences that exist in public and private sectors in Cameroon, emphasizing on the need to be proactive and creative. Mr. Tanyi Christian revealed that efforts are being intensified to have more branches of LUKMEF Cameroon, in and out of the national territory. He advised the staff to shun individualism while embracing team spirit, learning new ideas, as indispensable tools for excellence in the organization which will facilitate the strive to create impact within communities in Cameroon and beyond.

The main objectives of LUKMEF were to; 

Strengthen knowledge of community volunteers in GBV core concepts and guiding principles to support daily community activities in the field as such increase their understanding of GBV in emergencies.

Understand the basic principles of psycho social first aid to appropriately counsel, refer and arrange follow up for GBV survivors.

Strengthen community volunteers knowledge on PSEA and how to ensure that communities are supported to report and seek assistance from the PSEA task force in southwest humanitarian response.

Identify available service providers and draw a plan of action in further pursuing meaningful coordinated community mobilization in the southwest humanitarian response.

To realize this objectives, facilitators full of knowledge on GBV such as MS. Harriet Adong, gender based violence programming specialist for UNFPA, Sindie Frederic-GBV AOR Coordinator, Mr. Tanyi Christian CEO LUKMEF Cameroon, madam Egbe Arrey Franca GBV Specialist LUKMEF Cameroon piloted the two days training where participants came up with their plan for various communities ranging from mobilization to awareness raising to safe referral path ways.

However, the plan of action faced challenges such as communication barriers, no network and internet in some areas and in crisis context, solutions were proposed such as the use of churches, town criers and maximum safety measures, proper information about area of work. While encouraging these community workers to work for the betterment of humanity, they were also encouraged to rely on God our ultimate creator for strength.