African Ministers of Women’s Affairs meeting in Nairobi, Kenya on Friday, 15 October, have called for the setting aside of at least one percent of membership subscription to the African Union (AU) for efforts to empower women in the continent.
The money will be utilised to set up and finance the Empowerment Fund for women which will support various women’s projects under the Decade of African Women (2010-2020) that was officially launched in Nairobi on Friday to coincide with International Rural Women’s Day.
Attending the launch of the decade on behalf of South Africa, Minister for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities, Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya said it is necessary that African governments should allocate more resources to capacitate Ministries for Women and other gender institutions that have been established to improve the status of women in the continent.
The launch in Nairobi follows last year’s decision by the AU Heads of States to declare year 2010 to 2020 a decade of African women.The launch event was convened to review and celebrate progress made so far towards gender equality and empowerment of women and to articulate concrete actions that should be taken to accelerate momentum in the attainment of goals articulated in AU Declarations on Gender Equality.
The theme for the decade launch is: “Grassroots Approach to Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment”
Over the next ten years, the Decade of African Women Campaign will focus on the following themes:
- Fighting poverty and promoting economic empowerment of women and entrepreneurship
- Agriculture and food security
- Health, maternal mortality and HIV and AIDS
- Education, science and technology
- Environment and climate change
- Peace and security and violence against women
- Governance and legal protection
- fFnance and gender budgets
- Women in decision-making positions
- Mentoring youth (boys and girls) to be champions of gender equality
“The themes of the African Women’s Decade are in line with the priorities of our own government of SA and it is therefore crucial for the Ministry to participate in the decade’s activities. Our aim is to mobilise resources that will benefit SA women,” said Minister Mayende-Sibiya.
A number of programmes will be initiated in line with the themes and the African Women’s Fund will be the vehicle of mobilising resources for the activities. Each Member State is expected to establish national committees comprising all segments of society. That the national committees should propose one project for each theme per year to be supported by the African Women’s Fund.
“Participating in the build up to the launch of the Decade provided our Ministry with an opportunity to influence the agenda of the African Women’s Decade. We will now be leading the mobilisation of support for and implementation of the Decade agenda and creating synergies between the AU Decade campaign and SA key policy priorities,” said Minister Mayende-Sibiya.
She said there has been a great focus on issues of capacity and resources for gender structures at both continental and national level including deliberations within the ruling party in SA, ANC.
“The National General Council of the ANC deliberated on issues of capacity that has been allocated to the Ministry called for this Ministry to be capacitated without delay. This resolution should translate into appropriate budget adjustment and a speedy confirmation of appointments and recruitment into the several posts that have recently been advertised by the Ministry,” said Minister Mayende-Sibiya.
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