Promoting Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Africa

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This paper is the Economic Commission for Africa’s contribution to the debate on progress made, remaining challenges and actions taken to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women in the last decade. The discussion starts from the conviction that gender equality and the empowerment of women are both desirable and mandatory for the achievement of sustainable development. It reviews what has been done in the decade to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women. The paper acknowledges the progress made, especially in implementing the Beijing Platform for Action but proceeds to interrogate the adequacy of the actions taken for achieving the desirable goals of gender equality and the empowerment of women. It highlights some good practices as well as gender issues that remain unresolved and areas in which the situation of women has deteriorated. The paper also focuses on the major crosscutting challenges that must be seriously addressed if gender equality is to be achieved. Finally, it outlines some of the concrete measures that have to be taken to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women in Africa. These actions were discussed and adopted at the Seventh African Regional Conference on Women, in Addis Ababa in October 2004.