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Key stakeholders including African Diplomats, the Canadian Ambassador, and Minister will converge in Harare for the first-ever Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) Africa Conference from the 23rd to the 25th of November.
Tag a Life International (TaLI), a Zimbabwean girls and young women’s rights organization will be the host where the meeting will provide a platform for African girls to discuss their developmental issues in relation to the impact of Covid-19 on their rights and to influence African Governments resource priorities.
The regional conference on the rights of girls and young women will bring together 15 countries from East, Southern, and West Africa to investigate the situation of AGYW in Africa given the impact of COVID-19, with the view to raise awareness of the need for deliberate and strong resource allocation on adolescent girls and young women as the world is rebuilding from the ruins of Covid-19, with a special focus on the African States.
In most African countries, education has been greatly affected despite that before the pandemic; a significant number of children was already out of school. In all this, it is the girls who feel the worst impact including issues of early and forced marriages, genital mutilation, and other forms of GBV.
Meanwhile, issues of participation, sexual reproductive health, and rights, climate and environment, broader human rights, economic empowerment among other challenges have been negatively impacted. There is need to also draw inter-sectional ties to their total empowerment.
The Canadian Ambassador to Zimbabwe and Angola, High Commissioner-designate to Botswana, Her Excellency Christina Buchan will deliver a keynote speech on the urgent need to invest in AGYW now.
African Ambassadors are expected to share their solidarity messages and their promise to take up the girls’ demands to their governments and to African regional platforms such as the African Union. At the time of release, 5 African embassies had confirmed their availability to join the girls on the 25th at the conference to receive the Communique and to subsequently deliver it to their governments; namely South Africa, Rwanda, Malawi, Uganda, and Tanzania.
In her keynote address, Her Excellency Buchan will share her country’s experience with other Africa diplomats; call on African governments to invest in AGYW issues. Africa Ambassadors present will share their country’s experiences and probe their countries as well as the African Union to priorities the girls’ concerns as the continent rebuilds from the ruins of the pandemic.
About 15 countries are converging: 5 in each of the 3 regions. Throughout the 3 days, the girls will share experiences, identify their challenges, map their priorities, and end with a ‘Communiqué’ of demands that will be released to African Governments to ask for prioritisation of resources on their issues. Marking the global launch of the 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence (GBV), the communiqué will be released on the morning of the 25th of November before key stakeholders issue their solitary messages. The Minister of Women Affairs will also speak.
The Conference is in strict adherence to Covid-19 protocols and guidelines as the girls interact online and gather in limited numbers in each country to join their sisters across the continent.
On the last day of the Conference as the world marks the beginning of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence, the young women will present their ‘Communique’ which will state their challenges and demand for solutions that include prioritization of national, continental budgets on AGYW issues and for the African States to acknowledge their unique challenges.
The regional conference has been made successful by the generous funding of The International Development Research Centre – IDRC, Global Fund for Women, Urgent Action Fund Africa, African Women Development Fund (AWDF), and Bill Cook Foundation.
TaLI is partnering with ‘in-country partners’ in each of the 15 countries to bring the 225 girls to the conference, and the following are the partners from the various countries; (FAWEZA Zambia), Afrika Tikkun (South Africa), New Millennium Women, Empowerment Organization (Ethiopia), Associates for change(Ghana), Society for the improvement of rural people (Nigeria), Center for Justice and Peace Studies (Liberia), Youth Inspire initiative (Malawi), Girls Aid Movement (Siera Leone), Africa Women’s Development Trust, Hope Center | for Children girls and women in Tanzania (Tanzania), Raising Teenagers Uganda (Uganda), Polycom development project (Kenya), Aspire debate Rwanda (Rwanda), GIWE (Senegal), Economic Justice for Women Project (Zimbabwe) as well as Rozaria Memorial Trust.
This year’s 16 days of Activism theme is, “Orange the world: End violence against women now.”