Towards a Gender Equal World: the EU Gender Action Plan III

• Gender marker: G2-Promotes gender equality as a primary objective.
• Period of implementation: 2022 – 2025 (ongoing extension to 2027)
• Amount: 70,000,000 EUR (+ ongoing addendum for 20,000,000 EUR to be approved in 2023)
• Geographical area: Sub-Saharan Africa
• Implementing partners:

  • Government of Tanzania and Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar

  • UN Women, SIDA, EIB, ENABEL

  • Civil Society Organisations (CSOs)  

• GAP III’s Areas:

  • Gender-Based Violence

  • Sexual and reproductive health and rights

  • Economic and social empowerment

  • Equal participation and leadership

  • Green and digital transformation

The “Gender Transformative Action Breaking the Glass Ceiling” is a Global Gateway Flagship aiming at accelerating the progress towards gender equality and women empowerment in Tanzania.

During the last 2 years, Tanzania has taken many steps forward, thanks to the first women president, who started her mandate started in early 2022 and has clearly put Gender Equality and Women’s rights as a priority of the government. A major success has been, after 20 years from the first one, the adoption at the highest level of government, of the new Gender Policy together with the revision, adaptation and preparation of new National Plans of Action for ending violence against Women and Children or the preparation of the first Women Peace and Security National Plan of action, among other relevant initiatives. Nevertheless, as statistics show, there has been  a notable increase in the Gender Development Index  of the country,  from 0.936 in 2014 to 0.948 in 2019, which later declined to 0.943 in both 2020 and 2021. These results imply women are more disadvantaged in enjoying dividends of human development achievements. Beyond the violence-specific challenges, Tanzania faces early marriages and teenage pregnancy/motherhood, harmful social practices, leadership and economic imbalances, including in higher level of education and discrimination at work and within the family and community. Moreover, as of 2020, with Covid-19 and a difficult electoral period, the country has experienced a visible decline in women’s rights and increasing violence against women and girls.

Therefore, this action is supporting Tanzania to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 and address all six priorities of the EU Gender Action Plan III 2021–2025 (GAP III), which are in line with national policy priorities. This intervention aims to make services more accessible and equitable for women, so that they can live free from violence; promote women’s economic empowerment, including green and digital opportunities; and advance equal participation, leadership and decision-making, including in actions related to justice, peace and security.

More specifically, this programme includes a substantive component implemented through the sector budget support modality which represents an assertive strategic and operational choice. It contributes to operationalise an enabling regulatory and policy environment able to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in all spheres and across all sectors (justice, education, health and security). Regarding policy dialogue, this will target key priorities and reforms such as gender-based violence or women participation and leadership, making sure that cross cutting issues are properly considered and mainstreamed. Besides budget support, a mix of different modalities will be used, and synergies with guarantee operations will contribute in particular to women economic empowerment objective.

Furthermore, this action takes a comprehensive and transformation approach to the complex challenges of gender inequality in Tanzania and benefits women, including youth/children and persons with disabilities, by addressing many underlying factors that prevent women and girls from exercising their rights and contributing fully to Tanzania’s economic growth.

It recognises that a multifaceted intervention – at the macro, meso and micro levels – is needed to address all GAP III’s priorities and accelerate Tanzania’s progress on SDG 5. This is why it does not only support public policies and implementation strategies but it will also design targeted activities on the grounds. These will focus on improving financial inclusion, strengthening social safety nets, conducting awareness raisings, and providing legal aid to women in all their diversity. Moreover, the action is fully aligned with the “working better together” principle by involving policy dialogue with multisectoral partners, such as the Ministries Finance, Gender, Health, Justice, Education and other relevant line ministries. In addition, it foresees synergies and complementarity with other EU Team Europe Initiatives and with other Member States initiatives – in particular Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Finland, France, Germany, Sweden. It also builds partnerships with civil society organisations, professional bodies, research organisations and the private sector.

So, to what extend the program will have a positive impact on women’s lives? Thanks to the budget support component, this intervention, for instance, will contribute to ensure that women and girls feel safe in public spaces (i.e. public markets, transports and universities); more girls complete secondary schools due to regulations that allow pregnant girls to attend school and re-enter after giving birth; girls have easy access to contraception and family planning thanks to Hospital One-Stop-Centres; gender desks are easily accessible for victims of violence or paralegal services and child helpline are efficient. Also, it will support gender budgeting processes and promote the adoption of an Act to abolish marriages under 18 years old, a Law to criminalise gender-based violence and a Land Act to ensure women’s ownership. Furthermore, quality data on different forms of violence will collected, analysed and used in line with international standards, in order to strengthen evidence-based programming.  

Women’s economic empowerment will be also promoted by increasing access to finance through the European Fund for Sustainable Development Plus (EFSD+) by providing guarantees, with a view to create more prosperous businesses and new and better jobs for women;  more than EUR 150 million from EIB and several local banks will be allocated to dedicated financial products for women; 150 women businesses formalised; and safety nets available  in health, nutrition and education with cash transfers  to 140,000 poor girls and young women,

Finally, in engagement with CSO and communication contractors, this program will contribute to promote women’s leaderships and changing behaviours  by public declarations of Influential leaders (traditional, religious, cultural, political, media) repealing child marriage, FGM, domestic violence;  ensuring women’s justice access through paralegal system in the whole country;  and fostering more women in leadership position in public, private sectors, civil society and media (TV shows/programs with President Samia Hassan and other Tanzania and  EU women leaders or radio/ video series with acclaimed actors and influencers against gender stereotypes).

So that, thanks to the EU funding, the action supports the Government of Tanzania to deliver on its obligations to promote, respect and fulfil the human rights of women and girls, and create the necessary conditions for a deeper gender transformative change in the country.

Renatus Mkude, Assistant State Attorney, National Prosecution Service

“Our primary responsibility is to uphold justice by tackling Gender-Based Violence cases in court, and coordinating criminal investigations. We actively participate in various training sessions, with over 240 prosecutors equipped to identify the nuances of different GBV cases and understand the complexities associated with prosecuting them. A significant achievement is the positive impact of prosecutors’ training, evident in several cases that have resulted in successful convictions through meticulous investigations and diligent courtroom prosecutions.

Swift case proceedings allow survivors to promptly grasp their situation and access necessary support. Conversely, prolonged case durations can hinder the justice process, potentially leading to witness intimidation or recantation of testimonies.

In addition, we have conducted an internal review within our office and identified certain challenges primarily related to legal aspects. Several laws have undergone revisions. The current Parliamentary session in Dodoma has witnessed numerous legislative changes. Notably, one of these changes has affected Article 127 of the Evidence Act, which upon scrutiny, was found to have implications for cases involving children subjected to GBV.”

Grace Scorey – Education project coordinator, Pastoralist women Council

We work in partnership with the European Union in a project that aligns with our goals of seeing women as leaders and being able to speak out for themselves.

FGM is a form of GBV that a child experiences at a very early age (…). Our challenge as pastoralist women includes being economically dependent on men, that’s means that we cannot support children’s education, particularly girls. Our second challenge is the normalised perception of FGM practice which is highly affecting our daughters.

 First of all children should be educated very early to prevent FGM from happening within our society. Second, we should be able to provide education to the society about the effects of FGM.  Third, the government should implement strong laws against those responsible for implementing FGM.

Maryam Elhaj – Project officer

We work 24/7. We receive 3000 to 5000 calls a day and more than 20000 in a week. This number is important to guarantee confidentiality to those who intend to give information related to child violence.

Our call centre helps people to report and to receive services without revealing their identity because what is really important is for them to tell us where they are or where they have witnessed these acts of violence, without revealing their identity.

It also receive calls on GBV and then we connect with relevant people or services which include counsellors and all institutions that work with us to fight against GBV in Tanzania.

To know more about the 16 days of activism video campaign 2023, please click here.