African Gender Ministers Commit to ‘Renew’ and ‘Intensify’ Efforts to Empower Women
ECA Press Release No. 71/2009
Banjul, The Gambia, 20 November 2009 (ECA) – African ministers responsible for gender and women’s affairs renewed their commitment to fully implementing international, regional and subregional agreements on women’s empowerment and gender equality.
“We are committed to renewing and intensifying our resource mobilization efforts, improving national strategies and enhancing institutional, financial and human resources in order to accelerate the achievement of the goals of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) between now and 2015,” they stated.
Ministers made this pronouncement in the Banjul Declaration on the Strategies for the Acceleration of the Implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action. The document was the final outcome of the week-long Eighth Regional Conference on Women (Beijing +15) review meeting, which took place 16-20 November in Banjul, The Gambia.
Speaking on the last day of the conference, Dr Isatou Njie Saidy, Vice President of The Gambia, and Minister for Women’s Affairs noted that African women “are still facing violence and discrimination, harmful traditional practices and beliefs, hunger and poverty and unequal opportunities.” She said: “Reducing the burden of poverty and encouraging women’s economic empowerment are imperative for achieving the goals of the Beijing Platform for Action.”
The ministerial declaration focused on seven key areas, identified as critical for African women:
1. Economic Empowerment of women through poverty reduction, employment creation, social protection and use of information and communications technology.
2. Peace, security and development to be adressed through capacity building, psychological support for victims and domestication of relevant protocols and resolutions on women.
3. Violence against women combated via a multi-sectoral plan to address gender-based violence.
4. Representation and participation of women in all areas of decision making through among other things affirmative action measures.
5. Sexual and productive health and HIV/AIDS programmes strengthened through improved health systems, repositioning family planning as a development priority and mainstreaming gender into maternal and child health services.
6. Climate change and food security policies to become more gender responsive.
7. Financing for gender equality to be institutionalized through gender-sensitive budgeting and the development of finance mechanisms to ensure allocation of funds on national and subnational levels.
The Conference took stock of progress achieved in Africa since the Beijing Summit on Women fifteen years ago, and identified pending challenges for the implementation of the 12 critical areas of the Beijing Platform for Action. The conference brought together nearly 1,000 ministers, experts, civil society organizations and other stakeholders with an interest in gender and women’s development.
This landmark regional conference on women was sponsored by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and came in the wake of the recent African Conference of the ICPD+15 held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in early October 2009. This latter assessed progress achieved in the implementation of The Programme of Action of the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD 1995); and reiterated the imperative need to accelerate action towards achieving gender equality and effectively empowering women and promoting their human rights in Africa.
Ends
For more information, please contact:
Houda Mejri : +251115443337 Kaylois Henry : +251115443652
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