The Parliamentary Women’s Group Timor-Leste (GMPTL) claims the Secretariat of State for the Promotion of Equality (SEPI) failed women’s economic empowerment because many rural women in the country are vulnerably and still financially dependent on men’s income.
GMPTL President, Member of Parliament JosefaAlvares Pereira Soares, said the program failed because despite SEPI subsidies to women’s groups, it failed to adequately monitor and supervise the implementation of projects.
“Supervision is very important, otherwise funds will get used and the groups will become dependent on the subsidies rather than working towards generating a profit.
This is not good,” said MP Soares.
She urged SEPI have a better selection of proposals to fund and avoid nepotism in the selection process because most of the proposals selected don’t end up benefiting the women.
In response to this allegation, the Secretary of State for the Promotion of Equality (SEPI), Idelta Maria Rodrigues, acknowledged supervision of the implementation of funds could be done better but it is still done weekly.
“We have the complete data. There are 167 groups in the 13 districts. Women have access to the funds but some are not meeting targets, I acknowledge that,” said SE Rodrigues.
She added despite claims that SEPI is ineffective and that it doesn’t implement activities at the grassroots level; she said the problem is people’s mentality and that if they don’t see what SEPI does on TV they claim it doesn’t do anything.
Meanwhile, beneficiary AdelinaFreitas da Costa, the Coordinator of the InanTerus Nain Group, said the profit groups make depends on the activity each group does.
She said groups cannot just run activities in their own village and they have to diversify and do handcrafts and other activities so they can sell every day.
“We have been receiving support from SEPI since 2008with funds amounting to $3,000 to attend specific training at the SENAI Training Centre,” she said.
Coordinator da Costa said her group’s activities include sewing clothes and tais products, weaving tais and handcrafts.
