In April 2009, Indonesians voted over 800 new representatives to the national, provincial and district parliament in Aceh. The Finnish Embassy, based in Jakarta, uses the ’local cooperation fund’ to support, for example, projects that strengthen women’s rights and political participation in Aceh.
The most recent of these was a series of training seminars focused on the newly elected Acehnese female members of parliament.With a total of 49 new female members of parliament in the provincial and district levels in Aceh, the training was planned to be carried out in two seminars. The first, recently concluded in Medan, ran from 28 June to 1 July 2009 for half the group, while the second is scheduled to run later on in Banda Aceh.
According to the Finnish embassy in Jakarta, thay plans to arrange training on other subjects are under discussion. In all probability Acehnese politicians will be in line for more motivating sessions before the parliament term commences in the autumn.
