THE NOWIP PRESS – Nowip

The Network of Women In Politics (NOWIP) is set to launch the NOWIP PRESS a News platform that is aimed at giving online media presence to Ugandan Women Politicians to enable them access, receive and disseminate information during the COVID-19 and the post COVID -19 era.

In March 2020, Uganda received her first case of COVID-19 which later led to a Presidential directives that locked down leading to the closure of all its border posts, learning institutions, a stop on public transport, suspension of communal gatherings like political functions and rallies, prayers and halting all international travels among other presidential directives. With the 2021 elections anticipated to take place in February 2021, this has left women politicians stranded on the way forward when it comes to remaining politically relevant amongst their electorates.

NOWIP realizes that the vaccine or complete treatment of COVID-19 pandemic may not be discovered soon so it’s very likely that if the 2021 General Election is to take place, the campaigning processes will take a Digital twist.

The populace will still be required to uphold the WHO COVID-19 Preventive measures to prevent more infections. It is now timely to introduce women politicians to the use of the three transformative technologies that include cloud, social and mobile that will help them strengthen their media presence amongst their electorates even when the status quo remains.

The Electoral Commission(EC) Chairperson Justice Byabakama Simon has already communicated to the public that the EC has postponed activities that were to be implemented in the 2020/2021 Roadmap due to the COVID-19 crisis, this literally means that when the lockdown is lifted, the EC will have to re adjust dates and shorten activity days to enable them meet deadlines, the activities that shall be affected will include electorate consultations, vote search/Campaigns and citizens engagements by civil society and election observers .

The shortening of these processes will mostly affect this affect Women Politicians since they will have limited time to reach out to the electorate because of their triple work burden and the stereotypical sentiments around women in politics during elections.

This therefore means women will not have enough time to consult electorates, design impact based manifestos, display their development and livelihood programs, and get acquitted with mandatory electoral processes and the opportunities and challenges therein.

NOWIP-PRESS targets all women politicians across all political parties at all leadership levels including incumbent women politicians, political aspirants, Special interest groups representatives, Women league leadership position aspirants, District council representatives and Local Council representatives.

The Chairperson of NOWIP Ms. Babirye Lilliane gives assurance that NOWIP PRESS will give a free and fair audience to all women politicians, women politicians have finally gotten a platform that will address their current pressing needs, With the lockdown, the number of internet users has gone up since the print media is now not performing well, women politicians need to tap into this opportunity.

NOWIP PRESS COMPONENTS

-Online interviews with women politicians

-video/podcast -Information or News coming in from the existing women leagues

-Weekly profiling of women politicians that are excelling in a relevant field -Profiling women politician’s livelihood and development projects

-Information on published Government programmes beneficial to women in politics -Information about COVID-19 -Maintaining media presence for women politicians

– Capacity building opportunities in electoral processes, democracy and media visibility -Communications from the Electoral Commission on the way forward and new electoral dates

-News about evident cases of electoral /political violence We encourage members to join and share information on free will.

All interested women politicians are only required to access our News and information by following The NOWIP Press through our digital platforms ie: nowip.org, Twitter –nowipofficial, Facebook-Nowip or send us an email on info@nowip.org

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