Date: June 20, 2024
Time: 10 00am – 1:00pm (GMT+1)
Venue: Mansel Hotel (Register now)
Zoom Online (Online Registration)
Title: Empowering Women in Central Africa : The way forward

 

• Background and Context

Women’s contribution to development has been consistently proven in different sectors. In Sub-Saharan Africa, they are responsible for 80% of food production (Ali, 2013).   According to the Africa Labor Migration Report, women in the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) steadily represented half of the population from 2008 to 2017, with a labor participation rate of 41.8 percent in 2017. Their contribution to the continent’s GDP oscillates between 7 and 9 percent, making them an important stakeholder to economic growth.

Despite this great potential, women in ECCAS still face challenges such as low literacy rate as compared to their male counterpart, unfavorable land ownership policies, discriminatory inheritance rights, limited access to credit and New Technologies of Information and Communications (NTICs), low political participation and insufficient implication in decision making processes amongst others. These inequalities represent serious obstacles to women’s empowerment and have contributed to a very large extent in deepening their vulnerability in the society.

Considering these challenges, the present round table conference is organized by the Nkafu Policy Institute, think tank of the Denis and Lenora Foundation to highlight barriers impeding women empowerment in the ECCAS region as illustrated in video documentaries produced to this effect on the following issues:

• System change for increasing accountability in ECCAS
• The role of think tanks in promoting peace and security in ECCAS
• Protecting women against domestic violence in ECCAS

• Objective

The overall objective of this Round table is to raise awareness on identified challenges facing women’s empowerement and advocate the need for policy makers to lift barriers facing women’s empowerment. More specifically, our objective is to:

1. Educate public opinion on discriminatory practices that perpetuate gender inequalities with the aim of eradicating them;
2. Advocate for increasing political participation and socioeconomic contribution from women in Central Africa
3. Assess the state of gender equity in Central Africa and propose in-depth policy agenda to achieve goals set by the African Union’s Strategy for Gender Equality & Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) for 2018-2028, amongst other frameworks.
4. An assessment of women’s empowerment policies in ECCAS is carried out, and areas for improvement are identified as the way forward.

• Target audience

The target audience of this Round table conference includes the media, opinion leaders, researchers, scholars, interest groups, pressure groups, associations, local communities, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and decision-makers in all eleven target countries of ECCAS.

• Expected outcomes

1. Participants and public opinion and aware of discriminatory practices that perpetuate gender inequalities and equipped on what to do to eradicate them;
2. Policy and decision makers are increasingly committed to improve women’s political participation and contribution to socioeconomic development in Central Africa.
3. An audience of at least 10% of ECCAS population is updated on barriers to women empowerment and how to reduce these.

Contact: Ayukmba Nkonghonyor, Senior Communications Manager, [email protected], Yaounde, Cameroon. Tel.: (+237) 654 86 72 54.