CGDS’s project, “Enhancing Education, Developing Community, and Promoting Visibility to Effect Gender Equity in Iraq and the Greater MENA Region,” funded by the European Union, underwent a ROM (Results-Oriented Monitoring) review during the summer of 2020. The European Commission uses the ROM system to ensure its grantees’ progress and responsibility through this established, results-oriented methodology. The CGDS team very much appreciates the time that the ROM expert took and the detail with which she investigated. We have learned from the critique, and have already implemented some of the suggestions. We were pleased to have mostly “good/very good” evaluations. Among other strong points, the report notes that representatives from the Ministries of Culture, Education, and Higher Education “all stressed the importance of the intervention and that it can lead to an impact on Gender Equality in Iraq and Kurdistan.” Our translation project of academic work on gender into Arabic and Kurdish “and proposing reforms to local institutions based on studies and scientific [research] in local languages can play a big positive role in achieving an impact in terms of gender equality in MENA.” The reviewer also noted CGDS’ goal to develop a MENA-wide network of gender studies academics: “Stakeholders representing universities who were interviewed from Iraq, Kurdistan, Lebanon and Egypt have high expectations that the network of academics…will be able to propose policy papers and advocacy campaigns based on [research] in order to influence policies on gender equality and in order to achieve development goals.” In the concluding statement, the reviewer found that the project “continues to be highly relevant to the needs of the target groups, especially in view of the ongoing and increasing challenges for gender equality in Iraq, Kurdistan and the MENA region.” This project began in October 2018 and, following an extension resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, will finish in June 2021.
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