Patience Mkandawire, 27, grew up in Zimbabwe’s rural Nkayi District and has gone on to study IT and software engineering– now she is helping girls from Nkayi do the same and to get the education resources they need during Zimbabwe’s pandemic-induced school closures. Mkandawire says the Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the vast digital gap...
Monrovia, Liberia, The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection in collaboration with the Adolescent Girls Advisory Panel have observed this year’s National Young Women and Girls Conference. National Young Women and Girls Conference is a yearly program designed by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and its partners to afford young women...
Only 29% of women in Kenya between the ages of 15 and 49 are empowered, according to the new Kenya women’s empowerment index. The study, developed by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics in partnership with the State Department for Gender, UN Women, and UNICEF, is “the first comprehensive and systematic measure” for women’s and girls’ empowerment in Kenya,...
Representatives of humanitarian organisations have called for improved welfare for internally displaced women and girls in Nigeria. The stakeholders from within and outside Nigeria emphasised the need to protect and empower internally displaced women and girls to enable them take on the challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. They made the call during a virtual...
Cecilia Mwende Maundu is a broadcast journalist based in Kenya and a specialist in gender digital safety. She is also the current Secretary General of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television, Kenyan chapter. During COVID-19, women and girls are using the internet more than ever to stay connected with the world, but they...
More men than women may have contracted Covid-19 around the world, but experts have warned that the pandemic may set gender equality back by decades. Melinda Gates, the co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said in a paper this week that policymakers risked prolonging the crisis and slowing economic recovery if they ignored the gendered...
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Rwanda office has concluded a two-week campaign that was aimed at creating awareness on the plight of women and girls who are affected by Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and defilement. The campaign dubbed “Against my will Campaign” or” Ntibiri mu bushake bwanjye” in Kinyarwanda started from June 30 and ended...
Professor Opoku-Agyemang, former Vice-Chancellor of University of Cape Coast, Ghana, was the first female Vice-Chancellor of a state University in Ghana. She assumed duty on October 1, 2008, succeeding Emmanuel Addow-Obeng. Biography Born on 22 November 1951 in Cape Coast, Ghana, Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang attended Anglican Girls’ Secondary School at Koforidua and Aburi Presby Girls’...
Statement by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women Date: Thursday, July 2, 2020 UN Women is 10 years old today. On 2 July 2010, the General Assembly adopted a landmark resolution to merge four parts of the United Nations system into the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of...
Urgent, and accelerated action is needed to end female genital mutilation, child marriage, and other “harmful practices” and abuses carried out against women and girls, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA), said on Tuesday, in its latest major report on the state of the world’s population. Every year, millions of girls are subjected...
