Seven groups took away grant awards totaling USD 200,000 to tackle the gender-related issues of HIV/AIDS, migration, political participation and domestic violence, the United Nations Theme Group on Gender announced on April 27 in Beijing, marking the second anniversary of China Gender Facility.

Most winners in the first round of the Facility’s grants competition had a governmental or academic background, and the trend was reinforced this year. Of the seven grantees, selected from a total of 68 proposals, three are Women’s Federation branches (from Xuzhou, Inner Mongolia and Guangxi) and four are research centers affiliated to Beijing University, Beijing Normal University, Huazhong Normal University in Wuhan and Yangzhou Party School in Jiangsu.

UNIFEM gender specialist, Guo Ruixiang (郭瑞香), explained that winners were chosen for their research and advocacy ability, and that this tended to favour groups that are good at networking and able to exert stronger influence on policymakers.

Guo also acknowledged that some grassroots NGOs had applied unsuccessfully.

Renowned Chinese women’s activist, Professor Wu Qing (吴青), who was invited to speak at the award ceremony, later told China Development Brief that her group, the Rural Women’s Culture and Development Centre, had not known about the Facility, although it has years of experience working to promote women’s political participation and protect women migrants’ rights.

Established in September 2004 and administered by UNIFEM, the China Gender Facility aims to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment with funding support from UN agencies and other multilateral and bilateral development agencies, notably DFID, AusAID, UNFPA, ILO and UNICEF.

Report by Tina Qian, April 28 2006

See attached table for full list of grant awards