‘Youth alliance to work with SIGI towards gender equality in Parliament’

AMMAN — A Jordanian youth alliance, Shaghaf, on Wednesday signed an agreement with the Sisterhood Is Global Institute (SIGI) to work together towards gender equality and democratic representation in Parliament. 

Staff from SIGI’s “Eyes on women” programme will train 30 young volunteers from Shaghaf to monitor the role of women in electoral programmes, the upcoming elections and the next Parliament, said Raafat Badran, who signed the memorandum of understanding on behalf of Shaghaf. 

SIGI’s “Eyes on women” programme aims to monitor the elections from a gender perspective. 

“We believe in the ‘Eyes on women’ programme, which aims to provide a supportive political environment for women’s participation in elections,” Badran told The Jordan Times. 

Each volunteer trained by SIGI will then train an additional 10 Shaghaf members to monitor the upcoming elections, slated for September 20, according to Badran. 

The trained Shaghaf volunteers will be most active in selected areas of Amman, Ajloun, Karak, Maan, Zarqa, Balqa and Irbid, Badran said. 

The alliance, which takes its name from the Arabic word for  “Passion”, was formed to monitor campaign promises made by electoral candidates, and to hold elected lawmakers accountable for their pledges in the next Parliament.

Shaghaf is preparing a pact, outlining local and national demands in the fields of tourism, the economy, law and government, in cooperation with various specialists, said Odai Harahsheh, the alliance’s media administrator. 

The group will also coordinate debates between electoral candidates to discuss their programmes, he added.  

“The pact will be ready by next week and we will start the debates once the official registration of the nominees begins [on August 16],” Harahsheh told The Jordan Times. 

Candidates will be given an opportunity to sign the pact and to commit to meeting local and national demands, he said.

Shaghaf will launch an official website soon to publish the results of the debates and its monitoring programmes, according to Harahsheh. 

Some 4,000 youth volunteers have joined Shaghaf, around 38 per cent of whom are female.