African Women’s Decade (2010-2020) officially launched on International Day of Rural Women

On the International Day for Rural Women, the African Union (AU) officially launched the African Women’s Decade (AWD) (2010-2020) with the aim to advance gender equality through the acceleration of the implementation of global and regional decisions and commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment. Under the theme “Grassroots Approach to Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment,” the Decade hopes to effectively combine a top-down and a bottom-up approach. The launch was attended by Heads of State and Government, AU ministers, representatives from UN entities, development partners, civil society organisations, and the private sector, as well as academia, gender activists, and grassroots women.
The Decade is focused around the following ten thematic areas:

• Fighting poverty and promoting economic empowerment of women and entrepreneurship
• Agriculture and food security
• Health, maternal mortality and HIV and AIDS
• Education, science and technology
• Environment and climate change
• Peace and security and violence against women
• Governance and legal protection
• Finance and gender budgets
• Women in decision-making positions

The Decade will be implemented in two phases. The first phase will be from 2010 to 2015 and the second phase will be from 2015 to 2020. There will be reviews in 2015, back-to-back with the MDG Review, and at the end of the Decade in 2020.

Each of the 53 Member States of the African Union is expected to establish national committees, including representatives of all segments of the society, which will propose one good practice project for each theme on an annual basis (so ten projects per year per country in total), to be supported by the African Union Fund for Women. This means that during the decade a total of 530 existing projects for the advancement of women will receive additional financial resources to maintain and enhance their work.

To read the press release of the launch, click here.