Finding the voice of women in today’s world: Women Deliver 2023 inspires hope

There is a popular saying in Ghana that “If the one pursuing you has not stopped, the one being pursued, has no business stopping.” The import of this saying is very simple—what it means is that if there is a problem which has not been fully addressed, there is no point relaxing efforts in getting it resolved.

This saying aptly applies to the issue of gender equality in Ghana and other parts of Africa. Even though a lot of work has been done in Ghana and other parts of Africa in that respect, the desired result, where women and girls will find their voices, have easy access to healthcare, education, economic opportunities, and decision-making bodies in Africa, has not yet been achieved fully, needing more efforts and enhanced strategies.

It is for this reason that participants in the “Women Deliver 2023” conference emphasized the need for public-private partnerships in achieving gender equality. 

Women Deliver 2023, which  took place in Kigali, Rwanda, convened stakeholders from around the world to deliberate on issues that help to break barriers, address challenges, and identify opportunities to advance gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and improve the wellbeing of girls and women, in all their intersecting identities.

Women and girls in Ghana likewise other African countries, face many challenges in many areas. For instance, there was an alarming report that the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) published on July 2022 which indicated that nearly one-third of women in developing countries are becoming mothers during childhood. 

Other studies even point out that on a daily basis, 20,000 girls under the age of eighteen in developing world give birth. The disturbing issue associated with this menace is that these young girls are more than twice likely to die in childbirth and have a much higher risk of obstetric fistula than if they had waited until they reached twenty to give birth.

The situation of children becoming mothers is widespread in many West African countries, including Ghana. The menace is associated with a high school drop-out rate, which suggests negative consequences for the affected girls’ futures. 

It is practically impossible for any nation to address issues of gender equality, poverty, maternal and child mortality with this kind of statistics. Teenage pregnancies and early marriages remain a threat to the objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

When a young girl becomes pregnant or bride, the consequences are lifelong – for the girl, for her family, for her community and for her nation. The girl is robbed of her rights and her childhood— teenage pregnancies and child marriage undermine efforts to reduce abject poverty and to build a society that is more equal.

Public-Private Partnership interventions 

Tackling this age-long problem requires the adoption of more holistic approaches, such as the Public-Private Partnership (PPP). PPP plays a key role in the effort to help address the issues of gender equality. 

The reason is that including a gender perspective in PPP frameworks as well as the planning, design, development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of infrastructure projects can, for example, help to ensure that projects are designed that grant women equal access to transport, electricity, and water and sanitation services.

Ensuring that women and girls have easy access to education, health, opportunities just as their male counterpart will help to achieve the Maputo Protocol. The Maputo Protocol provides for extensive and progressive women's rights. These include the right to health and reproduction, inheritance, economic and social welfare, education and training, access to justice and equal protection before the law, and elimination of harmful practices. 

During this year’s Women Deliver conference, Voix EssentiELLES, Her Voice Fund, Speak Up Africa, Y+ Global, ViiV Healthcare Positive Action, and the Global Fund hosted a side event to further drum home the need for a PPP approach in advancing gender equality in Africa. 

The event was on the theme: "Advancing gender equality through investing in women and girl’s meaningful engagement in decision-making spaces". 

The speakers at the event highlighted the importance of public-private partnerships in increasing investments and finding innovative ways to accelerate progress towards advancing gender equality. 

The event also formed part of the second phase of Voix EssentiELLES, an initiative supported by Fondation CHANEL and the Global Fund, aimed at empowering women and girls as well as promoting their participation in decision-making processes and spaces. 

The event served as an opportunity to highlight the voices of community organisation, women and girls, activists and funders committed to tackling health, economic, religious, and socio-cultural barriers to the development of women and girls in all their diversity. 

Participants from feminist organisations, women's networks, civil society, private sector, and philanthropic organisations discussed best practices, approaches and lessons learned from women-led initiatives to promote gender equality. 

More importantly, the event featured inter-connected themes including: What Works- featuring promising initiatives, success factors and bottlenecks within collaborative initiatives that address multiple needs of women and networks and Strategic Partnerships – interrogating funders and women and girls can collaborate better, building alliances, leverage on each others’ expertise, influence policies, programmes and financing towards advancing gender equality and meaningful participation.

Different perspectives  

Speaking at the event, the Senior Programme Lead at IDEO, Larissa Bachia, emphasized the need for a community-based approach to the design and implementation of gender equality programmes. 

“We need to neutralise hierarchies, reinforce girl’s agency, and ensure they have the means for active participation,” she said, adding “They should sit on a table with funders and implementing organisations as peers.”

She further called for new ways of working, saying “We need to embrace new ways of working. We can be subject matter experts, but decision-making on what will work and what will not work should be left for those whose lives are affected by the solutions we design and implement.”

The President of “Jeunes engagées pour la sexualité”, Jennifer Van, a Voix EssentiELLES Fund grantee in Côte d'Ivoire in 2021 and 2022, highlighted her organisation’s significant achievements and impact in fighting gender-based violence and inequality in Côte d'Ivoire. 

She also emphasized the urgent need to invest in women's leadership and empowerment and the need for long-term funding for organisations like hers. 

"Through the Voix EssentiELLES initiative, we have helped hundreds of young girls take control of their sexual health by avoiding risky sexual behavior. It is vital to support women-led organizations working to eliminate gender inequality, as women's empowerment is a key lever for sustainable and equitable development in Africa," Jennifer Van indicated. 

The Voix EssentiELLES initiative, launched in 2021 by Speak Up Africa in partnership with the CHANEL Foundation and the Global Fund, aims to empower women and girls in all their diversity by promoting their meaningful engagement in the decision-making spaces and processes that influence health policies and programmes. 

For her part, the Head of Community, Rights and Gender at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, Kate Thomson, said "There are still enormous challenges to achieving gender equality and we must leverage the skills and contributions of all.”

She also indicated that “Governments and businesses must work together with women and girls in all their diversity to create an inclusive ecosystem where women and girls can thrive and contribute fully to development."

Also sharing her views, the Coordinator of the HER Voice Fund, Maximina Jokonya, expressed the hope that public-private partnerships can be a powerful strategy for ending gender inequality and amplifying women and girls’ voices. 

"It is crucial that the public and private sectors pull their resources and expertise to drive social change and achieve gender equality,” she said, adding “The synergy of their actions can lead to the implementation of inclusive policies, the creation of positive role models and the development of women as leaders and decision-makers."

The HER (HIV Epidemic Response) Voice Fund is implemented by the Global Network of Young People Living with HIV (Y+Global). Supported and funded by ViiV Healthcare Positive Action and the Global Fund, the HER Voice Fund promotes the involvement of adolescent girls and young women in decisions that affect their lives. 

Similarly, the Deputy Executive Director of Speak Up Africa, Fara Ndiaye, emphasized that collaboration between the public and private sectors is a key strategy in all Speak Up Africa interventions, including gender equality initiatives.

"As once a younger, smaller organization with what was considered lower absorptive financial capacity, we feel tremendously blessed to now be in a position where we can strengthen the capacities and unleash the potential of dozens of grassroots organizations across West Africa. With this second phase, we strive for increased impact as we further build trust and sustainable relationships with our grantees”, she concluded.

Speak Up Africa is an African-led organisation, based in Senegal, dedicated to building an Africa where growth and sustainable development are driven by Africa’s own citizens. 

This article was produced with the support of Speak Up Africa's Media fellowship programme