The year 2020 began on a high note for the African Women Leaders Network (AWLN). As the world was preparing to mark 25 years since the Fourth World Conference on Women, AWLN sought to commemorate the anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action with the launch of 25 National Chapters across Africa. The COVID-19 pandemic and its disproportionate gendered impacts has challenged AWLN to quickly become the torchbearer of African women’s indomitable spirit to ensure the “gains made are not reversed”, as AWLN Champion and UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed emphasized during a May 2020 virtual consultation on COVID-19 Responses.
AWLN was launched at the UN Headquarters in New York in June 2017, under the auspices of the African Union Commission (AUC) and the United Nations (UN) through the Office of the AU Special Envoy on Women, Peace and Security and UN Women. Three years after it was established, the network comprises over 500 African women across generations and sectors. Its ambition is to create a continent-wide force of women leaders who contribute to Africa’s transformation in line with Africa Agenda 2063 and the Global Sustainable Development Agenda 2030. This effort has six key pillars: governance and political participation, peace and security, finance and women’s entrepreneurship, youth leadership, agriculture, and social mobilization. AUC Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat acknowledged these cross-cutting priorities and African women’s roles as farmers, entrepreneurs, traders, scientists, and leaders in many other sectors that form the backbone of our economies.
Click here to read the full article published by The Guardian on 13 August 2020.