Three Collingwood leaders recently returned from a trip to Africa to help women there get involved in local government, and to help make life better for women through government initiatives.
Collingwood Coun. Deb Doherty, town clerk Sara Almas and the town’s executive director of customer and corporate services, Amanda Pegg, provided a short presentation to council this week on their mission, which was done through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Partnerships for Municipal Innovation program. Their mission specifically was for women in local leadership.
“I think we took away as much as what we brought,” Doherty said during the meeting. “It was an amazing shared experience.”
The overall project aims are to increase women’s capacity to get involved in local governance in their countries, and to grow the local government capacity to deliver inclusive, gender-responsive services. The project is working with local government associations in Benin, Cambodia, Ghana, Sri Lanka and Zambia, and the Town of Collingwood was paired with the Region of Halton to work with the associations in Ghana.
The town applied to participate in the project in December 2021, and in February 2022 received notice it had been selected.
Over six years, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities estimates the total project cost for all five countries combined is $27.61 million. The program is fully funded by the federal government through Global Affairs Canada.
“Throughout the training session between the three of us, we provided presentations and real-life experiences on ways Collingwood has embraced inclusion and diversity, and referenced projects and strategies we have used,” said Almas.
She said the three Collingwood representatives were each paired with a local government to brainstorm to apply the learning to specific projects in their communities.
“Markets are an important component of the livelihoods of women in Africa. We worked on ways to make women’s lives more enjoyable from a child-care perspective with (washroom) facilities,” said Almas. “It was very interesting.”
In an interview following the presentation, Doherty said when meeting with municipal representatives from Ghana, there was a sense of great intention, but a long road to travel for progress.
She said while Canada has a 30 per cent participation rate for women in government (standing 65th internationally), Ghana is only at 10 per cent.
She said Collingwood participating in such a trip was mutually beneficial.
“It opens the eyes of the people who are participating and gives a world perspective. It can be important to have a world perspective when you come back to a small town,” said Doherty. “It helps us to think bigger.”
She also noted it can elevate the profile of Collingwood on the world stage.
“We come back with learning, too,” she said.
Doherty noted differences between Canada and Ghana, specifically that Ghana uses a formalized process called Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) to evaluate how a government decision is gender responsive.
“We are all about inclusivity and accessibility, but we don’t really have a formalized structure in which we evaluate that. The GBA+ is being used in some municipalities in Canada, but not by our municipality,” she said.
Doherty said there were many aspects of life in Ghana that made her pause, such as a lack of garbage pickup and recycling and the precarious nature of their water supply leading to many trusting only bottled water.
“We are just so lucky,” she said. “It reminds me how appreciative we should be for our democracy and the way many municipalities in Canada have moved forward in making sure all people are considered and are part of any kind of service provision.”
— With files from Erika Engel
