The founder and chairperson of the Mwanza based Actions for Democracy and Local Governance (ADLG), Jimmy Luhende, made a presentation on challenges and best practices in dealing with local government authorities. He underlined that while the space for dialogue at national level is progressively shrinking, new opportunities for a more fruitful engagement arise at local level. Local Government Authorities (LGAs) are increasingly under pressure in the delivery of development projects. Consequently, more are open to dialogue with the civil society sector in order to receive support for their development efforts.
On her part, UN Women gender expert Mehjabeen Alarakhia attempted to bring to surface the biggest challenges Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) face in mainstreaming gender in their operations. She pointed out that many times the concept of gender mainstreaming is either not clearly defined or mistakenly managed by organisations. Gender is not about getting a 50:50 ratio in beneficiary outreach, but rather an approach that should facilitate fair involvement of both genders based on the different contexts in which an actor operates.