Report of Activities 2007 - Club of Madrid

Missions to Sierra LeoneCLUB DE MADRID: REPORT OF ACTIVITIES 2007The first mission by the Club of Madrid and its counterpart in Sierra Leone, Campaign forGood Governance within the African Women Leaders Project, took place in May in Freetownand Makeni. Lasting five days, it was led by the Club of Madrid Members Kim Campbell(Canada) and Ketumile Masire (Botswana) and included the participation of Dora Byamukama,a member of the Eastern Africa Legislative Assembly.The mission’s activities included meetings with over 250 people, including women ministers,electoral candidates, senior civil servants, women’s civil society groups, leaders of politicalparties, traditional leaders, local representatives and young leaders. The delegation focused onpromoting participation by women in the legislative and presidential elections held in July andAugust 2007 respectively, supporting the candidates, and on encouraging parliamentaryapproval of legislative initiatives to protect women’s rights.In the month of July, the Club of Madrid and Campaign for Good Governance carried out asecond mission to Sierra Leone, in response to the many requests received from the participantson the first mission. The former Minister for Ethics and Integrity of Uganda and former memberof parliament Miria Matembe led several training sessions.This mission took place at the same time as the official start of the electoral campaign in SierraLeone. Matembe explained the key strategies for a successful campaign to the participants,most of whom were electoral candidates for the three main political parties in the country.Practical training sessions were held on public speaking, how to answer questions from citizensand the media, and how to raise funds and manage electoral resources. The former Ministerexplained to the women leaders the importance of maintaining strong ties with civil societyorganisations and the need for centring their discourse on specific measures that are ofimportance for voters. Finally, Matembe gave some guidelines for the winners of the electionswho would become members of parliament.In December (11-15), the third Club of Madrid delegation visited the country. ChandrikaKumaratunga, former President of Sri Lanka and the senator and former general prosecutor ofLiberia, Gloria Musu Scott, led the delegation and met with the Sierra Leone President, ErnestBai Koroma, who expressed his support for the initiative and stressed the great value of theAWLP. Meetings were also held with government leaders including the governmentspokesperson, members of parliament, representatives of political parties, the mayor ofFreetown, civil society organisations and international organisations such as United Nations.During the visit, the new computer centre created for this project by Club of Madrid wasinaugurated. This should allow women parliamentarians to access new technologies through theprovision of computers with Internet connections. A brief training course was given on how touse them. This centre should also promote participation by women in the debate fora on theproject’s web site.The programme ended with two days of workshops offering training on leadership for membersof parliament, given by senator Scott and Dr. Bernadette Lahai, a veteran member of the SierraLeone parliament.Study mission to UgandaAfter the decision to not work in Somalia, which had initially been selected as the third countryfor AWLP, for safety considerations, in August the Club of Madrid carried out a mission to8/17