Background:

The Ministry of Women and Family Affairs was created in 2005. The Ministry is mandated to cater for women's rights, child development and family welfare. It has been entrusted the responsibility to design and implement social policies and programmes, which promote women empowerment, child development as well as consolidate and safeguard family welfare. Actions of the Ministry are therefore aimed at creating the right conditions and environment for the harmonious development of the Puntland's children, women and their families.

Vision:

To promote and enhance the welfare of the family this means supporting access to security ,social and economic opportunities specially with regards of health, education, food security and access of clean water and hygiene.

Mission :

A cts as facilitator, advocate, coordinator and monitor of policies and programmes to promote gender equality and equity, protecting the rights of women and children, and enhancing their overall development and promoting the welfare of families.

Mandate:

To support the development of integrated national policies that are sensitive to family welfare and women's rights.

Staff:

The Ministry has 14 fulltime staff and 5 part time staff. Of these, two of them have university degree with extensive experience on gender and women development.

Budget:

The Ministry's budget is less than 1% of the total government budget

Activities:

• Promote and strengthened rights, interests and safety of women, girls, boys and children.
• Capacity building and human resource development with a focus on women, youth and girls.
• timulating and motivating rural women towards achieving better living standards and sensitizing the rest of the Puntland population to the problems of women;
• Mobilizing women collectively in order to improve their general lot and ability to seek and achieve leadership roles in all spheres of society;
• Improving the socio-economic status of women and men and promote their rights through programmes for economic empowerment, nutrition, legal protection, welfare, and reproductive health including family planning and safe motherhood.
• To promote and advocate gender equality in the planning and implementation of development programmes.
• Promoting and defending women's rights as human rights, work for the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and ensure that legal measures are taken to promote equality between men and women.
• Promoting the interests and advancement of women and women's organizations and to ensure that government policies and actions with regard to women meet the needs of the female population.