Source: UN Women
More than 150 women from various sectors, including women politicians, civil servants, entrepreneurs, civil society, women living with disabilities, rural women, young girls and women in the media gathered at the Mont Febe Hotel in Yaoundé to take part in the launch of the Cameroon branch of African Women Leaders Network AWLN.
A new survey has shown that only 34 per cent of Nigerians use condoms for sex.
The survey, titled ‘Condom accessibility and use in Nigeria’ was carried out by NOIpolls, in partnership with the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) and AIDS HealthCare Foundation (AHF).
Source: Daily Nation
Millicent Kagonga, 29, goes about her chores in the small but tidy one-roomed house she shares with her two children and her sister in Nairobi’s Kariobangi estate.
Source: African Union
As the African Union (AU) dedicates year 2020 to accelerate action and efforts towards ending all wars, civil conflicts, gender-based violence and prevention of genocide, the role of African women and girls has been emphasized as an integral part of the implementation of the master roadmap to silence the guns in Africa.
Source: SAnews
South Africa’s agenda during its African Union (AU) chairship will focus on women’s financial and economic inclusion, gender-based violence and accountability to global gender commitments.
Pledging to end the gender imbalance in science, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in his message for the Day that “dismantling gender stereotypes” was an essential step.
Source: Al Jazeera
Across Kenya, students are starting to speak out and challenge a problem they say plagues the country's campuses.
Source: UN Women
UN Women in partnership with Oxfam and the Born to Lead campaign, on Thursday 30th January 2020 launched a research report titled “Our Search for Peace: Women in South Sudan’s National Peace Processes, 2005-2018.”
Source: IPS
Dr. Anne-Maria Brennan loved science as a young girl. But instead of encouraging her, those around her made attempts to steer her in the “right direction”. “The right direction was in nursing, teaching and secretarial courses. I was told that girls do not study physics,” she tells IPS.
Source: The Guardian
Zimbabwe has recorded an unprecedented number of women reporting being forced to exchange sex for employment or business favours.
Source: Inter Press Service
Rape victims who have been successfully reintegrated into their communities assemble in a "peace hut" near Walungu, South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Ugandan doctors are giving new mothers artificial intelligence-enabled devices to remotely monitor their health in a first-of-its-kind study aiming to curb thousands of preventable maternal deaths across Africa, medics and developers said.
Source: VOA
By Moki Edwin Kindzeka
Civic groups, political parties and the government are pleading for the women of Cameroon to vote in next week's local and parliamentary elections, despite threats by separatist groups who have vowed to disrupt the polls.
Source: New Zimbabwe
The Organisation For World Peace
ZIMBABWE is currently facing its worst food shortage in over a decade, leaving almost 8 million people food-insecure. The country, once the region’s breadbasket and rich in fertile crops, is currently plagued by widespread drought and flooding.
Source: Nyasa Times
Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development director of administration Duncan Chione has said the new land law which came into effect in 2018 is still facing resistance because men continue to grab land from women.
Source: IPS News
Mbabane — When 14-year-old Nomcebo Mkhaliphi first noticed the blood discharged from her vagina, she was shocked. Confused, she turned to her older sisters for advice.
"My sisters told me that they were experiencing the same every month and that they used fabric, toilet paper and newspapers as sanitary wear," recalls the now 45-year-old Mkhaliphi. She had to follow suit and use these materials because she had no money to buy sanitary pads.
Source: Daily Nation
Opinion
By Kamau Maichuhie and Moraa Obiria
The changes in government announced on Tuesday by President Uhuru Kenyatta have raised a ray of hope for a gender balanced public service.
In the fresh changes, Mr Kenyatta appointed Betty Maina as Industrialisation Cabinet secretary and 15 new chief administrative secretaries (CAS) -- eight are women.
Source: Daily Nation
They gather and sit in a circle under a tree at a trading centre in Kalpunyany village, Baringo County, one of the remotest areas in Kenya.
They are deliberating on a thorny issue that continues to face the region -- female genital mutilation.
Source: allAfrica
Women in the region are spending long hours doing necessary but unquantifiable work, leaving them with little or no time for work that is economically productive and earns them money.
Source: UN Women
Today, in post-civil war Liberia, less than 10 per cent of the population has access to electricity. While the country tries to rebuild its infrastructure, women solar engineers are pioneering efforts to provide affordable and clean energy by installing and managing solar lamps in their communities.
Rural Liberian women, trained as solar engineers over a six-month period by Barefoot College in India, with support from UN Women, are promoting renewable solar energy that reduces dependency on expensive and polluting fossil fuels, like kerosene. The solar lamps are lighting villages and communities, enabling longer work and study hours, and bringing greater security to many, especially at night time.
Infrastructure across Liberia, including electricity installations, was destroyed during the country’s protracted civil war (1989-2003).
Totota once had access to the national power grid, but during the civil war, electrical cables were damaged and looted. Now battery-powered lamps are the main source of light for many vendors working after dark.
While Liberia works to rebuild its power grid, many communities rely on privately owned generators to access power for their homes. Cables, such as the one above, are connected to a private generator in Peace Island, Monrovia, locally known as "540" because most residents are former soldiers or members of armed groups who were paid $540 to lay down their weapons during a demilitarization campaign after the civil war.
UN Women and Barefoot College in India collaborated on bringing solar electricity to African villages by training rural women to become solar engineers. In 2011, 26 women from 16 villages in Liberia, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda were selected to participate in six months of training on building, installing and maintaining solar lamps and panels.
In Liberia, solar engineers install a solar panel on the roof of a village house, bringing electricity to this home for the first time. Most villages lacked electricity, resulting in widespread use of kerosene fuel, which is neither cheap nor healthy for humans and the environment. Solar energy is providing an affordable and sustainable alternative.
With the installation of solar panels and lights in his home, 57-year-old Anthony Sorbor of Todee Community has electricity for the first time and no longer worries about finding money to buy candles or kerosene. The cheaper and sustainable solar lamps allow Anthony and his family to do evening chores and his children to study after dark.
Women gather in a “Peace Hut” in Margibi County. Spread across the country, long-affected by the deadly civil war, the Peace Huts are safe spaces where women come together to discuss and resolve community disputes. UN Women is supporting more than 16 Peace Huts across the country. At the Peace Huts, women mediate problems, run projects and businesses, and advocate for women’s rights. With solar lamps installed, Peace Huts are more secure at night and can function in the evening hours after the day’s work is completed.
Built with support from UN Women, this Peace Hut in the village of Todee also serves as a workshop space and warehouse for the women solar engineers. Since the Liberian solar engineers returned from their training in 2012, they have electrified over 425 homes and structures in the towns of Salayea in Lofa County, Banbala in Grand Cape Mount County, Juah Town in Grand Bassa County and Bahr Town in Montserrado County.
Jubilant women of Juah Town sing during one of their regular adult literacy training sessions held at the Peace Hut. With solar panels installed in the Peace Hut, adult education classes can be run at night, providing more opportunities for local women to attend and acquire basic math and literacy skills.
The recently launched flagship programme initiative on Women’s Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Energy by UN Women and UNEP builds upon experiences such as these and aims to increase women’s entrepreneurship, leadership and access to, and productive use of, sustainable energy