The year 2020 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995). Before that, the 1st United Nations (UN) World Conference on Women was held in Mexico in 1975, during the UN International Women’s Year. This Conference was the first of its nature to focus solely on women’s issues and marked a turning point in policy development.
The UN declared 1976 -1985 as a Decade for Women during which the 2nd World Conference on Women was held in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1980 and mainly focused on strengthening women’s networks. The 3rd Conference was held in Nairobi, Kenya in 1985 closing the UN Decade for Women, assessing progress and adopting the “Forward- looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women”. This Conference served as a base for the discussions at the 4th World Conference on Women hosted in Beijing and adopted a blueprint on women’s empowerment and gender equality.
2020 also marks the 20th anniversary of the Resolution 1325 (S/RES/1325) on women, peace and security, reaffirming the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and stresses the importance of their equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security.
Despite progress made, unfortunately, no country has been able to achieve gender equality. Taking this into account, civil society organizations together with the UN Women launched the campaign: “Generation Equality: Realizing women’s rights for an equal future”, aiming to bring together generations of women’s rights activists to tackle the unfinished business of empowering women.
The launch of this campaign led to the establishment of the Generation Equality Forum (GEF) which will be a global gathering for gender equality, convened by the UN Women and co- chaired by France and Mexico, in partnership with civil society.
Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the GEF has been postponed to 2021. The implementation framework for the GEF promised to be founded on the principles of inclusivity and a bottom-up approach, designed into Action Coalitions, as global, multi- stakeholder partnerships aimed at mobilizing governments, civil society, international organizations and the private sector.
Within Africa’s continental level; at the Extra- Ordinary Meeting of Ministers of Gender and Women Affairs in Maseru, Lesotho in December 2008, the African Union (AU) Ministers for Gender and Women’s Affairs called on the AU to declare 2010-2020 as African Women’s Decade adopted by Assembly Dec. 487 (XIX) under the Theme: Grassroots Approach to Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment. This remarkable effort has been translated into the declaration of the new Decade (2020-2030) of Women’s Financial and Economic Inclusion, by African leaders in February 2020.
This declaration is the result of African leaders’ commitment to scale up actions for the progressive gender inclusion towards sustainable development at the national, regional and continental levels. 2020 also marks the AU the theme for the year “Silencing the Guns: Creating Conducive Conditions for Africa’s Development” decided by the Executive Council during the AU Coordination Summit in Niamey, Niger, in July 2019 and adopted during the 33rd AU Ordinary Summit in Addis Ababa in February 2020.
While leveraging on these milestones, youth frameworks are key to advancing youth rights including but not limited to, “Harnessing the Demographic Dividend through Investments in Youth”, 2017 AU theme of the year, 2020 Youth Silencing the Guns Campaign, the Continental Framework on Youth, Peace and Security, and African Youth Declaration on Silencing the Guns.
Article 23 of the African Youth Charter, specifically addresses Girls and Young Women, by calling for the protection of girls and young women from economic exploitation and from performing work that is hazardous, takes them away from education or that is harmful to their mental or physical health. The AU Sauti صوتي publication further unpacks these challenges from economic, cultural and political spheres to the exclusion of young women from both youth and women policies, spaces and frameworks, leaving their specific challenges unaddressed. The current COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these challenges faced by young women; from economic hardships to school disruption and abuse during lockdowns as outlined in the Africa Youth Lead policy paper "Facts & Figures of Africa Youth Agency Challenges and Recovery Roadmap on COVID-19".
Therefore, the Africa Young Women’s Manifesto is a political document that sets out critical issues of concern for young women of Africa and makes demands for addressing them. The Manifesto is the result of five Africa Young Women Beijing+25 Regional Barazas that convened over 1500 participants and over 30 partners with the objectives of FEM:
- Foster
- Enable
- Mobilize
he Manifesto therefore provides a platform of a common set of demands for the achievement of gender equality and equity as well as Agenda 2063 and Agenda 2030. It allows young women to articulate their concerns and secure a clear and unreserved commitment by the Generation Equality Forum and Action Coalitions Leadership, which blueprint will inform policies, institutional processes and intersectional programmes and measures. These demands will ensure that girls and young women are able to participate actively, equally and effectively at all levels of social, educational, economic, political, cultural, civic life and leadership as well as scientific endeavours.
The process of developing and promoting the Manifesto also built upon the experiences of young women which ensures the manifesto is owned by a broad constituency. Young women are thereby empowered to use their voices to bring more youth into this movement. Participants of the five regional consultations came from across 45 countries, namely Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte D’Ivoire, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Eswatini, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana, Gambia, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Morocco, Mauritania, Madagascar, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Togo, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.
