As we approach 2030, Africa’s young population stands at the forefront of economic transformation. Youth and women entrepreneurs have had a profound impact on their communities and the continent at large. Their energy, resilience, and creativity are not just changing the landscape of business in Africa-they are driving the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The future of African youth and women in entrepreneurship: Leading Africa to 2030
The Brookings Institution
This paper examines the gender-differentiated economic impacts stemming from the Russia–Ukraine war (RUW) on some of Africa’s economies, and potential macroeconomic policy objectives that may mitigate them.
Gender-sensitive macroeconomic policies in low- and middle-income economies
ODI Global
The Guide to empower women’s businesses in transition contexts in Africa is designed to advise practitioners, national and international development actors, and anyone supporting women’s entrepreneurship, on simple, targeted, and straightforward approaches to plan, implement, and assess interventions that aim to assist women entrepreneurs to pivot their businesses for resilience in times of tumultuous change, reduce risk, bounce back, and seize new opportunities.
Reading of the Week: Guide to Empower Womens Businesses in Transition Contexts in Africa
African Development Bank
The Africa Gender (AGI) is an authoritative source of data on gender equality and women’s empowerment in Africa. It draws together statistics from all 54 African countries across three dimensions (economic, social and empowerment & representation) into a single index. This enables African countries to track not only their own progress over time but also against regional peers.
Reading of the Week: Africa Gender Index 2023 Analytical Report
African Development Bank Group
Using panel data from a large group of developing economies and a Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimator, we examine the effects of trade and other factors on female labor-force participation and wage employment. We focus particularly on comparing the effects of trade openness in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region with Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
Trade And Women In The Labor Market: How Different Is MENA From Other Regions?
Policy Center for the New South
Despite the existence of widely recognized international frameworks, a gendered approach to addressing transnational organized crime is generally lacking. That women are often the victims of organized crime —human trafficking is a good example— is a widely recognized phenomenon. But responses to organized crime often overlook women’s roles within criminal groups, and how they are impacted by illicit economies in ways that are different from men. They also fail to notice how women are agents in building effective responses to organized crime.
The missing piece of the puzzle. Women and organized crime
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
Next year marks 25 years since the adoption of landmark United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS). A persistent question in preparing for this event is how Security Council members that support WPS can make sure their efforts lead to changes on the ground. This is central in an era of pushback against women’s rights and gender equality in many parts of the world.
Reading of the Week: Time to Push for Next Step on Women, Peace and Security: Ensuring Positive Impact for Women in Conflict
International Peace Institute
This policy brief presents the gender representations theoretical framework to analyse how and why gender is used in the propaganda and politico-military strategies of violent extremist movements. It argues that violent extremist ideologies break down in-group and out-group collective identities into individual “good” and “bad” gender identities, or gender representations.
Why Gender matters in violent extremist propaganda strategy
International Centre for Counter Terrorism
In rural South Sudan, markets for food, labour and land are expanding, and women’s workloads are increasing. In the twentieth century, most rural women had two main labour burdens: they produced food for home consumption on family farms; and at home provided life-giving labour, like child-rearing, emotional support, cooking and cleaning. These two labour burdens were unpaid. But now, they have a third labour burden.
Reading of the Week: The triple burden: women selling their labour in South-Sudan
Rift Valley Institute
L'Indice 2021/2022 sur les femmes, la paix et la sécurité classe la Mauritanie au 157e rang sur 170 pays, soit le 13e pire rang mondial, en termes de statut et d'autonomisation des femmes. Une des raisons importantes en est la généralisation de la violence basée sur le genre rendue possible en partie par les tabous sociétaux et la faiblesse du système de protection et d'application de la loi
Bien que contre lusage de la force physique sur les femmes, les Mauritaniens estiment que la violence conjugale est une affaire privée
Afro Barometer
Gender equality continues to be elusive in many parts of life in countries across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Although there is widespread support for women enjoying equal rights, there has been some retrenchment on these issues in recent years
Gender Attitudes and Trends in MENA: The Effects of Working Women
Arab Barometer
In May 2023, the Saudi biomedical engineer Rayyanah Barnawi became the first Arab woman to go to space when she joined a private company’s mission to the International Space Station. Saudi Arabia has long been known for its harsh restrictions on women’s employment, but in the past 15 years it has raced to offer women more chances to work outside the home.
Working Women Are Changing Saudi Arabia
Foreign Affairs
When the Sustainable Development Goals were agreed in 2015, governments ambitiously committed to achieving gender equality as both a standalone and crosscutting objective. Almost a decade later, alarming funding trends are surfacing that leave transformative ambitions for gender equality and women’s empowerment at risk.
Ringing the alarm bell? What recent ODA trends indicate for gender equality
ODI
By 2030, more than half of the world’s extreme poor will live in countries characterized by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV) (World Bank 2020e). Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, 20 million more people are now living in extreme poverty in FCV countries
Increasing Gender Equality in Fragile, Conflict, and Violence Settings
World Bank Group
In the 10 years leading up to 2021, the share of women in sub-Saharan Africa who owned a financial account more than doubled to reach 49%, according to data from the Global Findex. Since 2017 alone, account ownership rates for women in the region increased 12 percentage points, driven entirely by increased adoption of mobile money accounts.
Digital finance boosting womens financial inclusion in sub-Saharan Africa: Emerging evidence
Brookings Institution
Women are a powerful engine for international trade and economic growth. As workers, small-scale traders, entrepreneurs, and producers, their engagement in export activities has the potential not only to elevate overall productivity and competitiveness in the international market but also to reduce poverty.
Women, International Trade, and the Law: Breaking Barriers for Gender Equality in Export-Related Activities
World Bank Group
In Mauritius, one in four women have experienced some form of gender-based violence (GBV) (Government of Mauritius, 2021; United Nations Mauritius, 2021). According to Statistics Mauritius (2020), reported cases of GBV spiked at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown in March-May 2020, jumping five-fold compared to the same period in 2018 and 2019
Mauritians rank gender-based violence as top womens-rights issue for government to address
Afro Barometer
The MENA region has one of the lowest female labor-participation rates in the world, and the lowest share of women in the total labor force, despite significant progress in reducing gender inequality in health and education. This situation has contributed to the so-called “MENA gender-equality paradox”
Trade and the Persistence of the MENA Gender-Equality Paradox
Policy Center for the New South
A wave of protests rocked Kenya in January, with thousands of people taking to the streets in support of the independence of the judiciary and women’s rights. With hundreds of demonstrations reported throughout the country, January marked a new record high in the number of protest events recorded by ACLED since July 2023.
Women and Lawyers Demonstrate Nationwide
ACLED
This Policy Brief delves into the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Agenda in the Euro-Mediterranean region, particularly focusing on the progress and potential of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325). The paper addresses the evolving dynamics in the region and the importance of utilizing the WPS Agenda as an inclusive framework for stability and conflict resolution. It critically examines the implementation of UNSCR 1325, highlighting the challenges and offering nuanced insights.
What about Women? Pursuing the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda in the Euro-Mediterranean Region
EuroMeSCo
Africa didn’t create the climate crisis, but we’re on its frontlines, and our women and girls are most affected. Women are primarily responsible for making up for household deficits in food, water, and income for basic needs. And it is girls’ schooling, training, and life choices that are most curtailed when difficulties arise.
Gender - Foresight Africa 2024
Brookings Institution
The Middle East & North Africa has one of the lowest rates of female labor force participation globally. The latest estimate from the World Bank shows that only 19 percent of women over the age of 15 in MENA participate in the workforce. Within the region, however, there is a wide spectrum.
A Year in Review for Women in the MENA Region: Leaps and Stumbles
Wilson Center
In a region often perceived through a lens of uniformity, particularly in its treatment of women, the Middle East presents a tapestry of contrasts and complexities. This report is a comparative study of women’s socio-political and economic status in Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The Status of Womens Rights in the Middle East
Stimson Center
The toll of armed conflict is felt heavily across civilian populations, as infrastructure is destroyed, civilians are killed, and the very social fabric of communities is unraveled. Most combatants across contexts are men, and in most wars, battle-related injuries affect men disproportionately
Unraveling the Multi-Faceted Impact of Armed Conflict on Women in the Gaza Strip
Wilson Center
This policy brief argues in favour of greater consideration of gender issues and women’s economic empowerment in natural resource value chains, to make value chain interventions more resilient and inclusive. There is a growing consensus that considering and addressing gender issues in value chains development is not only a matter of fundamental rights and equality but also a way to stimulate economic growth.
Gender Equality and Womens Empowerment in Natural Resources Value Chains - Key Issues
African Natural Resources Management and Investment Centre
Gender based violence (GBV) is a global epidemic. Deeply rooted in unequal power relations, GBV remains the most oppressive manifestation of gender inequality. It is most often perpetrated against women and girls. GBV comes in many forms, but intimate partner violence (IPV) and non-partner sexual violence remain especially pervasive across economies, cultures, ethnicities, socio-economic groups, and age groups.
Addressing Gender-Based Violence To Accelerate Gender Equality
World Bank Group
In the year 2000, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on women and peace and security stressed the link between gender equality and international peace and security. The resolution underscored the importance of the full and equal participation of women in all efforts towards the maintenance and promotion of peace and security, including UN peace operations.
Women in multilateral peace operations 2023: what is the state of play?
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Solange Adelola Faladé (1925–2004) was a French-Beninois doctor, anthropologist and psychoanalyst. The first woman Franco-African
psychoanalyst in France, she founded her own psychoanalytical society, l’École freudienne, in 1983. The aim of this article is twofold:
on the one hand, to introduce Faladé’s life and works, and on the other, to discuss her theory of multiracialism.
A lesson for the world: Solange Faladés anticolonial multiracialism
Taylor & Francis Online
In 1950, approximately 128.2 million people were aged 65 and older, just 5.1 per cent of the world’s population.
Today, the world has 807.8 million older people, a sixfold increase accounting for 10 per cent of the global population. Since women outlive men by an average of 5.2 years, they comprise a greater share of older persons.
Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals The gender snapshot 2023
UN WOMEN
Over the years, sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) committed as a tactic of terrorism has taken various forms, notably: forced recruitment; rape; forced marriage, pregnancy, and abortion; sexual slavery; and the use of women and girls to carry out suicide attacks. Numerous terrorist groups, including ISIS, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, Ansar Eddine, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda, are known to commit such crimes in the states where they operate. In 2016, an emerging focus on the linkages between terrorism and SGBV resulted in the UNSC’s affirmation that victims of sexual violence committed by terrorist groups should be recognised as victims of terrorism.
Time for a victim-centric approach in prosecuting sexual and gender-based violence committed by terrorists
International Center for Counter Terrorism
Liberian President George Weah declared rape a national emergency in 2020, after signing a Domestic Violence Act the previous year. Despite these steps, rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls persist, perpetuated by traditional social norms as well as social dislocations and a lack of accountability as a legacy of the country’s 14-year civil war.
Gender-based violence tops womens-rights issues in Liberia; citizens say it is a criminal matter
Afro Barometer
Liberian President George Weah declared rape a national emergency in 2020, after signing a Domestic Violence Act the previous year. Despite these steps, rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls persist, perpetuated by traditional social norms as well as social dislocations and a lack of accountability as a legacy of the country’s 14-year civil war.
Gender-based violence tops womens-rights issues in Liberia; citizens say it is a criminal matter
Afro Barometer
This paper was given as a keynote address at a convening for one of CODESRIA’s flagship institutes—the gender institute. The CODESRIA gender institutes have been running for twenty-eight years, with 428 direct beneficiaries. My engagement with CODESRIA gender institutes has occurred across three different periods and different thematic areas.
African Feminist Epistemic Communities
Codesria Bulletin
A majority of citizens endorse gender equality in hiring, land ownership, and politics, although many consider it likely that women who run for public office will face negative reactions from their communities and families. A majority of Gambians say the government needs to do more to promote equal rights and opportunities for women.
Gender equality in the Gambia: Citizens demand greater government efforts
AFRO Barometer
After her father was assassinated, Ilwad Elman and her family fled war-torn Somalia, becoming refugees in Canada. But at 20 she returned home - and stayed - to build support for survivors in a country where gender-based violence is rampant.
The Fearless Activist Taking on Sexual Violence in Somalia
Narratively
After her father was assassinated, Ilwad Elman and her family fled war-torn Somalia, becoming refugees in Canada. But at 20 she returned home, and stayed, to build support for survivors in a country where gender-based violence is rampant. Ilwad Elman knew she would be risking her safety and possibly even her life by going back to Somalia, but she was determined to go.
The Fearless Activist Taking on Sexual Violence in Somalia
Canada's National Observer
This brief is part of a larger research project, A Climate of Fragility, conducted by IOM Iraq and Social Inquiry, which provides the first detailed profiling of southern governorates in Iraq in a decade, exploring population demographics, housing, access to services, socio-economic situation, agriculture, migration, wellbeing, governance, security, and social cohesion. The profiling is based on a large-scale household survey.
Employment in the South of Iraq Challenging Prospects for Woman and Youth
International Organisation for MIgration
Over eight years of war in Yemen have had dire consequences on people’s day-to-day lives and shaped their definitions and perceptions of peace. Years of failed negotiations have allowed the warring factions to monopolize conversations on peace. Within these negotiations, women at both the local and national level have been largely excluded, despite them being at the forefront of mitigating the war’s impact on Yemenis. Utilizing a community-centered approach, this study seeks to give agency to Yemenis to define peace based on their own lived experiences, propose practices that promote women’s role in peacebuilding, and suggest ways to mitigate local practices that produce or reproduce gender inequalities and violent or non-peaceful practices. The study heavily draws on feminist literature that argues the ‘hidden’ everyday practices carried out by women — procreation, day-to-day routines, caregiving, satisfying basic human needs, negotiating inequalities, social relations, and resolving conflict—are integral to social cohesion, but inadequately researched nor recognized.
GRASSROOTS VOICES: Women and Everyday Peacebuilding in Yemen
SANAA
Many non-state armed groups use forced marriage during armed conflict. This practice has been documented across all geographic regions, in every decade since the 1940s, and across armed groups with many different ideologies. Yet while policymakers, scholars, and practitioners recognize forced marriage as an important form of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), there are no frameworks for conceptualizing the frequency and range of forms of forced marriage that occur in conflict.
Forced Marriage by Non-state Armed Groups: Frequency, Forms, and Impact
International Peace Institute
Many non-state armed groups use forced marriage during armed conflict. This practice has been documented across all geographic regions, in every decade since the 1940s, and across armed groups with many different ideologies. Yet while policymakers, scholars, and practitioners recognize forced marriage as an important form of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), there are no frameworks for conceptualizing the frequency and range of forms of forced marriage that occur in conflict.
Forced Marriage by Non-state Armed Groups: Frequency, Forms, and Impact
International Peace Institute
This study reviewed academic and grey literature and related policy debates to ascertain whether women’s economic empowerment, in all these dimensions, has been integrated into discussion of low-carbon transitions.
From Consumers to Climate Leaders
Gender Equality in a Low Carbon World
Despite progress made in female participation in public, political, and economic life, the MENA region still faces challenges in achieving gender equality. This newsletter provides expert analysis and informed insights on the MENA region’s most significant issues and trends, bringing together unique opinions on the topic and reliable foresight on possible future scenarios.
Women in the MENA Region: Between Progresses and Obstacles
Italian Institute for International Political Studies
Conflicts and violence all over the world exacerbate social and gender inequalities, with a negative impact on the lives of many women and girls. Moreover, a concentration of power in the hands of men has often prevented women from being structurally included in government policies, with their rights threatened. Yet, there is a strong presence of women peacebuilders who contribute to promoting solutions that can ensure lasting peace, thus opposing extremist tendencies.
Women and Conflicts: What Role for Women Mediator Networks?
Istituto Affari Internazionali
In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, violence against women (VAW) is referred to as a silent cancer that often goes undetected and unreported. Society in this region is becoming more aware of the epidemic, yet it is still not gender-sensitive to its causes or implications.
Criminalization of Gender-Based Violence: A Legal Obligation
Wilson Center
En 2000, le Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies a adopté la résolution 1325, sa première résolution thématique sur les femmes, la paix et la sécurité, qui reconnait notamment le rôle crucial des missions de maintien de la paix dans la protection des civils contre les violences sexuelles liées aux conflits (VSLC).
Nous Devons Rompre le Silence DUne Manière ou DUne Autre: Prévenir les violences sexuelles liées aux conflits dans les opérations de maintien de la paix de lONU
Center for Civilians in Conflict
Policy efforts to promote gender equality in Uganda built on the Ten-Point Programme that the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) announced in 1984, two years before coming to power. This programme aims to unite all Ugandans under one umbrella irrespective of their gender, religion, ethnicity, and other social characteristics. Under Uganda’s 1995 Constitution, 2006 National Equal Opportunities Policy, and 2007 Uganda Gender Policy, affirmative action has sought to reduce gender gaps, with some success.
Ugandans applaud government efforts to promote gender equality, but want more
Afro Barometer
On Thursday 8 December 2022, the Brussels International Center organised an event at the European Parliament called ‘Iran, Challenged: Women-led Protests, Women-led Responses’, hosted by MEPs Hilde Vautmans and MEP Soraya Rodriguez Ramos.
The event discussed the protests in Iran that have erupted since the death of Mahsa Amini, including the level of repression inflicted by the Iranian government. During the discussion, several important aspects were raised regarding how the international community, including the European Union, can better support the demands of protestors. This paper explores those elements in more detail.
Iran, Challenged: Women-Led Protests, Women-Led Responses
Brussels International Center
Climate change is more than ever the topic of the hour as governments and citizens across the globe are urged to take collective action to halt its impacts. Women, specifically those from low-income communities in the global South, are climate change’s first victims. Yet, gender-responsive climate solutions are painfully slow to develop. This paper highlights the different ways gender and ecological poverty are interlinked and the lack of representation of women in climate decision-making.
Towards an Integrated Feminist Perspective in Climate Change Solutions
Brussels International Center
Believers in equal rights for women are celebrating Sierra Leone’s just-passed Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Act, which mandates equal pay for equal work, maternity leave, financial inclusion, and a 30% quota of women in government appointments and private institutions with more than 25 employees. The act is a major step for Sierra Leone, where women make up only 12.3% of parliamentarians.
Sierra Leoneans welcome government efforts to address gender inequalities
Afro Barometer
Selon la Déclaration sur l’Elimination de la Violence à l’Egard des Femmes (Nations Unies, 1994), est considérée comme violence basée sur le genre (VBG) tout acte délétère contre la femme pouvant lui causer des souffrances physiques, sexuelles ou psychologiques. Cette forme de violence menaces la vie, la santé et les capacités sociales et productives de ses victimes (Assa, 2022). Conscient de la gravité du phénomène et de ses conséquences sur les individus ainsi que sur le développement, l’État de Côte d’Ivoire affiche une volonté de plus en plus manifeste pour l’endiguer.
Les Ivoiriens sont divisés sur le caractère privé ou pénal de la violence conjugale
Afro Barometer
Just as the call for women’s full, equal and meaningful participation has grown louder, and recognition of their role has become more visible, so has the violence that threatens and limits their participation. This violence is targeted precisely at silencing their advocacy and inhibiting women in general from participating in public life. The ascendancy of extremist political actors and the resurgence of military coups and seizures of power by force have made this problem worse.
Security Council Letter S/2022/756: Protecting women human rights defenders in conflict
United Nations Security Council
The stabbing death of world-class runner Agnes Jebet Tirop at her home in Kenya last year, allegedly at the hands of her husband, focused a global spotlight on a persistent menace to the country’s women and girls (Bieler & Boren, 2021). According to Kenya’s most recent Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), almost half (47%) of women aged 15-49 reported that they had experienced either physical or sexual violence (National Bureau of Statistics, 2014).
Most Kenyans see domestic violence as a private rather than criminal matter
Afro Barometer
dolescent girls around the world are speaking up and leading change toward a more gender equal world.1 But while girls stand ready to help shape our collective future, a myriad of concurrent and interlinked crises and barriers stand in their way. As the global community looks to “build back equal,” we have a unique opportunity to overcome these challenges, and to give adolescent girls the freedom and power they need to lead and thrive.
Building Back Equal, With and For Adolescent Girls
UNICEF
Nuclear science and technology are expected to play an increasingly important role in Africa in the near future. Nuclear power, nuclear medicine, nuclear applications in agriculture and nuclear research are all expected to enhance development.
Africas Nuclear Future: Increasing the Participation of Women and Youth
The South-African Institute of International Affairs
By looking into five large transboundary river basins, this chapter analyses the extent to which programmers and policies highlight and address gender equality in transboundary water governance, and whether they are effectively implemented or remain a lip service paid with limited impact. It shows that gender at the transboundary level remains either neglected or that “checking the gender box” prevails over genuinely addressing the complexity of the gender dimension.
Gender in Transboundary Water Policies
Clingendael
Two studies of young women’s employment challenges in Ghana and Senegal conducted by ACET in 2020 map the barriers and enabling factors faced by young women in the world of work across three sectors: agriculture, tourism and hospitality, and business process outsourcing (BPO).
Reading Of The Week: Barriers to Young Womens Employment in the Future World of Work in Ghana & Senegal
African Center for Economical Transformation
Generally, Somali women have been under-represented at all levels of government administration since the Somali Republic was established in 1960. In 2012, As Somalia ended the transition period, women were promised 30% representation in all sectors of government. Yet this remains a gentlemen’s agreement and the gender quota remains excluded from the provisional constitution. This lack of incorporation of the gender quota is reflected in the uneven representation of women in parliament in the last three indirect elections, in 2012 (14% representation); 2016 (24% representation), and 2021/22 (20% representation).
Women and Politics: Overcoming Barries of Political Representation in Somalia
Heritage Institute
The Al-Hawl displacement camp in the city of Hasaka, Syria witnessed the murders of six people in May 2022 alone. These deaths increased the number of documented murders in the camp to a total of 24 since the beginning of the year, and the mysterious January 2022 killing of an aid worker in Al-Hawl posed an unprecedented threat to the humanitarian and medical organizations working to assist the more than eight thousand female jihadists and wives and widows of ISIS fighters living there.
The Crisis of Female Jihadists in Al-Hawl Displacement Camp
Carnegie Endowment For International Peace
This ODI Policy brief is intended to help those working towards gender equality to better meet the aspirations and needs of those they aim to support. It departs from a growing base of evidence that those who seek to advance gender justice will accelerate progress when they intentionally channel resources to feminist social movements – one of the most important historical drivers of change.
Reading of the Week: How to Partner with Feminist Movements for Transformative Change
One Day International (ODI)
Security forces in Federal Iraq and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), including the military and police units, fail to accurately and equally represent all Iraqi people or their protection needs due to an under-representation of female officers. While women comprise nearly half of the Iraqi population, only 25.2 percent of the parliament is female, and CIVIC found that there are few women in positions of meaningful power or decision-making ability within the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) or Peshmerga.
Missing in Action Women in Iraq's Security Forces
Center for Civilians in Conflict