Remarks by Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, at the SDG Moment 2020
Source: UN Women
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action. As we celebrate this landmark agreement, COVID-19 threatens to undo the gains made on gender equality in the past 25 years. Women’s economic security is in jeopardy; gender poverty gaps are widening; gender-based violence is resurgent; and girls’ education and maternal health are threatened.
In 2021, it is expected there will be 118 women in poverty for every 100 poor men globally, and this could rise by 2030. This would be a stunning reversal for the SDGs. But this kind of backsliding is not a foregone conclusion: with bold policies to boost women’s economic empowerment, we can shift course and accelerate progress instead.
Read her full remarks here.
Sauti صوتي Publication Now Available
Source: African Union
Sauti صوتي Publication is a digital collection of 25 stories by young African women on the impact of #COVID19 launched by the African Union through the Office of the Youth Envoy in collaboration with the Gender Directorate. This is a first of its kind platform to amplify young African women’s work on the frontline and showcase their artworks and impact reinforcing the diversity of Africa.
View or download it here.
Leymah Gbowee Speaks Out On The Need To Invest In Our Collective Humanity
Source: Essence
On Sunday, Liberian peace activist and Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee will participate in a special debate, titled “Global Cooperation: New Institutions for a New Era?” speaking out on the future of global governance.
Gbowee, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her work leading the non-violent women’s peace movement, the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace that is credited with helping bring a decisive end to Liberia’s civil war, knows a lot about conflict and the best ways to combat it. Collaboration, compassion, and true reconciliation of the injustices that we continue to see worldwide are the ways to go, the activist noted, or no amount of restructuring will fix the social, political, and economic ailments that we continue to observe worldwide.
“The debate is primarily focused around all of the different international bodies and whether the current state of the world is calling for… a remake of the [United Nations], a remake of the [European Union], a remake of all of the different [bodies],” Gbowee noted. “My key message is that we don’t need to redo anything because what we need to do is to be invested in our collective humanity. This is where we have a problem because in the world today, most people tend to find themselves at a place where the powerful are almost always trampling the ones who are seemingly not powerful.”
Read more here.
Call to ‘energise’ women in SADC
Source: The Southern Times
Legislators should find ways of ensuring Southern Africa’s women – who constitute both the majority of the population and the bulk of farmers in a region heavily dependent on agriculture – have access to renewable energy. This was said by the Speaker of Namibia’s National Assembly, Professor Peter Katjavivi, at a virtual workshop on Mainstreaming Gender in the Renewable Energy Sector this week.
The Southern African Research andDocumentation Centre (Sardc), the SADC Parliamentary Forum and Parliament of Zimbabwe jointly organised the workshop. The workshop highlighted that in most rural communities, women were at the forefrontof securing energy resources – usually firewood – and hence the need to craft sustainable energy solutions for them.
Read more here.
Human rights violations against Bahraini women
Source: MEHR News Agency
The researcher at the Bahrain Forum for Human Rights Elham Shakeri said that that the Bahraini authorities’ claims and demands for peace, security and peaceful coexistence in the region contradicts its approach to the systematic persecution of Bahraini women.
Read major parts of her speech in the third session of “Ashura ladies” webinars, held this week, here.
From Where I Stand: Mahmuda Sultana Shorna
Source: UN Women
Mahmuda Sultana Shorna is the President of Women Peace Café (WPC) at Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University (JKKNIU) in Mymensingh, Bangladesh. Since the COVID 19 pandemic hit Bangladesh, she has found innovative ways to keep spreading messages of peace while helping women in her community.
Read her story here.
From Where I Stand: Working to Build Peace During the Pandemic
Source: UN Women
Umme Kulsum is the President of Women Peace Café (WPC) at Begum Rokeya University, Rangpur (BRUR) in Bangladesh. During the COVID 19 pandemic, she has been using the skills and network developed through the WPC to respond to the impacts caused by COVID19 in her community.
Read her story here.
#PeaceMoments
Source: Conciliation Resources
Peacebuilding can look like any one of hundreds of different actions, and mean different things to different people. And its often hard to comprehend the impact that peacebuilding has on the lives of people living with conflict. So, to mark the International Day of Peace, we’ve asked our peacebuilding colleagues, partners and friends from around the world to share their most memorable peacebuilding moments.
Listen to their stories here.
