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AFRICAN UNION COMMISSION |
Ninth African Regional Conference
on Women
(Beijing+20)
Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia
17-19
November 2014
Addis Ababa
Declaration on Accelerating the Implementation
of the Beijing
Platform for Action
Towards a
transformational change for women and girls in Africa
19 November 2014
We, the African Ministers responsible
for Gender and Women’s Affairs, attending the Ninth African Regional Conference
on Women for the twenty-year review of the implementation of the Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action, held in Addis Ababa on 19 November 2014,
organized by the Economic Commission for Africa, the African Union Commission,
the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
(UN-Women), agencies of the United Nations and other partners,
Reaffirming our commitment to the Beijing Platform for Action and
the importance of the objectives, principles and goals contained therein, and to
scaling up and accelerating their implementation,
Recalling the outcomes of the
previous African regional reviews of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for
Action,
Welcoming the decision of the Assembly of
Heads of State and Government of the African Union to declare 2010-2020 as the
African Women’s Decade and the year 2015 as the Year of Women’s Empowerment and Development towards Realizing Africa’s
Agenda 2063,
Appreciating the leadership of our Heads of State and Government in coming up with
the common African position on the post-2015 development agenda,
Commending the progress that has
been made in the development and implementation of global, regional and
national development frameworks, and the introduction of policies towards
gender equality and women’s empowerment,
Taking note with concern the uneven
progress made on achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment and the
challenges that African countries continue to face in implementing the Beijing
Platform for Action,
Concerned that new challenges and emerging
issues are arising, such as climate change, conflicts, HIV/AIDS, epidemics,
human trafficking, child labour, religious extremism, terrorism, global
economic and financial crises and increasing inequality, which threaten to set
back progress made so far towards gender equality and the advancement of women
and girls across the continent,
Expressing our full solidarity and support to
countries affected by the spread of the Ebola virus and commending the efforts
of Governments, the African Union Commission, the United Nations, the public,
development partners and non-governmental organizations to combat the epidemic,
Concerned about the impact and burden of the
epidemic, especially for women and children,
Taking note of Africa’s positive
development landscape and the ambitiousness of the continent’s structural
transformation agenda, as spelled out in the African Union’s Agenda 2063, which
has the potential to scale up investments for the advancement of women and
gender equality,
Emphasizing the strong positive correlations
between gender equality, women’s empowerment and Africa’s sustainable
development,
Acknowledging and
appreciating the
participation and contribution of non-governmental organizations and women’s
organizations to the Ninth African Regional Conference on Women (Beijing+20)
and taking note of the outcomes of their consultative meetings,
Acknowledging the importance of establishing
partnerships and strategic alliances with all stakeholders, such as ministries
of finance and economic planning and other line ministries, civil society
organizations, cultural institutions, the private sector, trade unions,
community and religious leaders, research and academic institutions, local
government, the media and the international community, to achieve gender
equality,
Recognizing that social protection is an important emerging
development strategy for inclusive and equitable development for all, including
women,
Call to action to achieve gender equality and women’s
and girl’s empowerment, as spelled out in the African Union’s Agenda 2063, by
2030:
1)
Call
upon our
member States to adopt gender-sensitive planning and budgeting schemes, with a
view to accelerating the implementation of the remaining gaps from the Dakar
and Beijing Platforms for Action through strengthened domestic resource
mobilization and allocation for women’s and girls’ rights;
2)
Call
upon our
member States to endorse the adoption of a stand-alone goal on gender equality,
the empowerment of women and women’s rights, and to include gender-sensitive
targets and indicators in the sustainable development goals, in line with the
priorities of the common African position on the post-2015 development agenda;
3)
Call
upon international
partners, both bilateral and multilateral, including organizations of the
United Nations system, to provide adequate technical and financial support for
our development efforts;
4)
Call
upon our
Governments and development partners to give the necessary resources to women’s
organizations and initiatives to ensure that women’s rights are protected and
that women and girls receive appropriate services;
5)
Commit ourselves to reporting on the
implementation of commitments made at the national, regional and global levels
in terms of gender equality and empowerment of women;
6)
Call
upon our
member States to demand accountability from development partners and civil
society organizations with regard to how resources for gender equality and
women’s empowerment are used;
7)
Call
upon the
African Union Commission, the regional economic communities, the Economic
Commission for Africa and the United Nations system to support
capacity-building, monitor and report on progress made in implementing
gender-relevant development programmes and plans, and to ensure that the
outcome of the Beijing+20 review is reflected in the work plan of the Committee
on Women and Development of the Economic Commission for Africa;
8)
Call
upon the
member States and the Secretary-General of the United Nations to increase
resource allocation to strengthen UN-Women to ensure that it fulfils its
mandate as the United Nations entity for coordinating the achievement of the
gender equality and empowerment of women goals by the whole United Nations
system;
9)
Call
for a strong
regional accountability framework involving Governments, the private sector and
civil society to monitor and track progress with a view to achieving the
post-2015 development goals, and particularly the stand-alone goal on gender
equality and women’s empowerment;
10)
Call
for the
strengthening of women’s freedom in challenging harmful social and cultural
norms and practices that impede women’s ability to fully participate in and
benefit from economic growth in Africa, as stated in the Maputo Protocol to the
African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights;
11)
Call
for investing
in data and information systems for monitoring and tracking of gender equality
and empowerment;
12)
Call
upon
Governments and development partners to provide resources to regional economic
communities so that they can play their critical role of coordination,
capacity-building, monitoring and evaluation.
We hereby reaffirm our commitment to
implement, monitor and assess the international, regional, subregional
and national agreements and initiatives entered into by the member States,
whose objectives are in line with the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for
Action, and the Millennium Development Goals, among others; and to accelerate
the implementation of the 12 critical areas of concern of the Beijing Platform
for Action, the Maputo Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’
Rights, the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa and the outcomes of
the International Conference on Population and Development, through the
following strategic actions:
1.
Economic
empowerment of women through the creation of decent jobs, poverty reduction,
social protection and social security
(a)
Systematically
review and, if necessary, amend macroeconomic and sector policies to integrate
gender equality and women’s empowerment to ensure inclusive growth and
equitable and sustainable development;
(b)
Place
women at the centre of the continent’s industrialization process through the
development of appropriate socioeconomic infrastructure, in line with the
African Union’s Agenda 2063;
(c)
Adopt
and enforce the implementation of laws allowing women to own land for economic
opportunities and to exercise their human rights;
(d)
Upscale
innovative initiatives to give women more access, ownership and control over
factors and means of production such as land, labour, finance, credit,
technology, markets and other productive inputs;
(e)
Facilitate
women’s effective participation in and benefit from the agricultural, mining
and tourism value chains by giving them the resources and skills they need to
improve their economic productivity;
(f)
Reduce,
recognize and redistribute unpaid care work, which falls disproportionately on
women and girls, by investing in infrastructure and time-saving technology and
emphasizing shared responsibilities between women and men, girls and boys;
(g)
Introduce
measures including paid maternity and paternity leave to address the issue of
work–life balance and to help those with family responsibilities;
(h)
Nurture
women’s – especially young women’s – entrepreneurship skills and talent
development, in particular in the agri-business and extractive industries, including
mining, by supporting their primary, secondary and tertiary education and
professional training, giving them access to resources, and helping them to
acquire new ICT skills;
(i)
Establish and strengthen domestic funding for social protection mechanisms and
interventions, and provide and/or reinforce social safety net services for
vulnerable women and girls (especially older women and children with
disabilities, female or girl headed households, orphans and other vulnerable
children).
2.
Education
and training
(a)
Undertake
a comprehensive review and gender analysis of the education curriculum to make
it more gender-responsive and remove stereotypes, in compliance with the
African Union’s Agenda 2063, which emphasizes the industrialization of the
continent;
(b)
Adopt
a multi-sectoral approach to address negative social and cultural norms and
practices including harmful traditional practices such as early marriage that
impede girls’ retention and achievement at the primary, secondary, tertiary and
vocational levels of education and training;
(c)
Promote
retention, completion and transition by providing incentives such as free and
compulsory primary and secondary education and subsidized higher and vocational
education to consolidate gains made in gender parity at primary-school level;
(d)
Adopt
and enforce legislation and other measures, including actions on
age-appropriate sexuality and reproductive health training, to end teenage
pregnancy, patriarchy, early and forced marriages and female genital mutilation;
(e)
Advocate
for affirmative measures with a view to increasing the number of girls taking
up science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM subjects) and ICT at
the secondary, tertiary and higher levels;
(f)
Provide
comprehensive and free early childhood development services as a preparatory
phase for quality education for children’s enrolment, retention and completion
of the education cycle;
(g)
Adopt
policies to allow pregnant girls to remain in school and return to school after
delivery;
(h)
Create
school environments that are girl-friendly and accessible, through measures
that eradicate sexual harassment, kidnapping and trafficking and ensure
improved security in schools, protective measures and adequate sanitation
facilities;
(i)
Provide
equitable, inclusive and quality education to ensure that girls with
disabilities, orphans, vulnerable children and those in marginalized areas
receive an education;
(j)
Implement
literacy programmes for adult women and girls, and establish schools and
alternative institutions for illiterate women and girls, boys and men.
3.
Women’s
reproductive health and HIV/AIDs
(a)
Scale
up efforts to drastically reduce maternal mortality at least by half through
the implementation of innovative policies and programmes, inspired by the
continent’s best practices such as wellness clinics and nutrition services;
(b)
Invest
in sexual and reproductive health rights, including by adopting and
implementing laws on sexual and reproductive health, awareness raising and
information services for teenagers and women, including comprehensive sexual
health education, information and services;
(c)
Implement programmes that ensure men’s shared responsibility, especially with
regard to family planning, HIV and sexual and gender-based violence;
(d)
Expand the provision of family planning services and contraceptives and access
to safe and legal abortion services in accordance with national laws and
policies, and protect the reproductive rights of women by authorizing medical abortion
in the case of sexual assault, rape, incest, in line with the Maputo Protocol
to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights;
(e)
Invest in coordinated, integrated and multi-sectoral interventions, scale up
the ratio of medical doctors, midwives and nurses to the population, expand
obstetric care services, especially in rural and remote areas, using retired
health professionals and community volunteers, in the light of the African
Union’s 2009 Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa;
(f)
Facilitate access to information and provide early detection services for
cervical and breast cancer and provide free cancer treatment for women;
(g)
Improve access for all women and girls to prevention, treatment and drugs to
reduce the negative impact of HIV/AIDS among women;
(h)
Scale up combined preventive HIV/AIDS measures for young women and girls and
expand programmes to eliminate mother-to-child transmission;
(i)
Promote the full implementation of Security Council resolution 2177 on the
Ebola virus from the African perspective;
(j)
Establish a special Ebola fund for women to address the adverse impact of the
epidemic on women and girls, including women with disabilities;
(k)
Call upon Governments to take appropriate measures to fight against
discrimination against women with obstetric fistula and to ensure their medical
care and socioeconomic integration into society.
4.
Violence
against women and girls
(a)
Enact
and strengthen the enforcement of laws addressing and punishing all forms of
violence against women and girls through adequate resource allocation and
targeted capacity-building of law enforcement agencies, including the
judiciary;
(b)
Invest
in social mobilization and implement public awareness campaigns targeting, men,
boys, women and girls, and religious, traditional and community leaders to
eliminate violence against women and girls and end trafficking;
(c)
Undertake
empirical studies to document the situation, stories, impact and cost of
violence against women on families, in the home, in the public sphere and on
socio-economic growth and Africa’s transformative development
agenda;
(d)
Invest
in the collection, analysis and use of data disaggregated by sex, age, location
and economic status on violence against women to inform targeted policy
interventions and programming;
(e)
Set
up national monitoring mechanisms for gender-based violence;
(f)
Respond
to violence against women and girls by ensuring a well-coordinated,
multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder response that includes provision of
efficient gender-responsive medical services, safe spaces for physical safety
and security, legal/judicial response and legal psycho-social support; and
observatory and monitoring units for violence against women;
(g)
Strengthen
policies and practices in all schools, including higher institutions of
learning; integrate issues of violence against women and girls into the
curriculum to promote dialogue and meaningful engagement of men and boys in
addressing violence against women in accordance with national laws;
(h)
Revise
existing policies to address emerging trends of violence against women and
girls such as forced and coerced sterilization and forced abortion of women
living with HIV/AIDs;
(i)
Ensure
access to justice for victims and women survivors including protection of women
human rights defenders;
(j)
Set
up legal funds for poor and underprivileged women and survivors of sexual and
gender-based violence;
(k)
Strengthen
the men’s movement for gender equality and systematically and comprehensively
build the capacity of men in positions of influence to promote the gender
equality agenda;
(l)
Continue
the implementation of activities initiated under the Secretary-General’s UNiTE
Campaign to End Violence against Women and Girls.
5.
Peace,
security and development
(a)
Integrate
the gender and rights framework within national security sector reforms and
ensure that all peacekeeping missions include and promote the rights of women,
in order to reduce gender- and sexual-based violence in conflict, eliminate
violence against women and girls and ensure that perpetrators of gender- and
sexual-based violence are held accountable;
(b)
Strengthen
and finance the response to terrorist threats and make special provisions for
the protection of women and girls, including responses to early warning signs;
(c)
Develop,
finance and implement national action plans for the implementation of Security
Council resolution 1325 and all other relevant Security Council resolutions;
(d)
Ensure
that all peace negotiations, processes and mediation teams include at least
50 per cent representation of women from all sides of the conflict;
(e)
Provide
appropriate training to women for their effective participation in peace
negotiations, peacekeeping missions, peacebuilding processes and humanitarian
crises via early warning and response mechanisms.
6.
Women
in power and decision-making positions
(a)
Pass
laws to ensure female representation of at least 50 per cent as provided
for in the African Union’s Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa,
adopted in 2004, the African Union Commission’s Gender Policy, adopted in 2009
and other affirmative actions passed at the subregional and country levels to
guarantee that women are fairly represented in all public governance structures
– elective, appointive and recruited – at management and decision-making
levels, in academia and in the private sector;
(b)
Introduce
mechanisms to monitor the evolution of women’s representation in elective and
appointive structures;
(c)
Strengthen
and provide incentives to political parties to nominate and support female
candidates;
(d)
Engage
with national electoral commissions and boards in order to strengthen political
financing laws and guidelines to promote integrity in politics and promote
women’s participation;
(e)
Support
training and capacity-building of women in political decision-making in order
to translate the numbers into more effective, quality participation and
influence;
(f)
Invest
in and strengthen knowledge-sharing and promote South-South sharing of best
practices;
(g)
Support
and invest in the creation of platforms that celebrate women in social,
economic and corporate positions and political leadership, and foster
mentorship programmes for young women;
(h)
Provide
leadership and self-esteem training to young women, including those with
disabilities, to enable them to participate in decision-making and leadership
roles;
(i)
Develop
and strengthen high-level gender advisory regional think tanks.
7.
Institutional
mechanisms for the advancement of women
(a)
Reinforce
the institutionalization of gender machineries by enforcing their mandate to
monitor and evaluate the achievement of agreed-upon gender equality targets and
indicators, including by equipping these mechanisms with the requisite staff
and financial resources to drive, convene and coordinate policies, programmes
and interventions;
(b)
Implement
measures, including capacity-building measures, to ensure that all ministries
and other institutions systematically integrate gender into their work;
(c)
Establish
and strengthen accountability mechanisms such as gender markers, gender audits
and integrated reporting applicable to all public structures and the private
sector, in order to track programmes and resources allocated to the promotion
of gender equality and women’s empowerment;
(d)
Provide
adequate resources and mobilize domestic financing, including private sector
partnership and financing for national gender and women machinery;
(e)
Strengthen
the collection and analysis of gender-disaggregated and gender-responsive data
within all sectors to ensure the effective integration of gender indicators,
targets and actions in all other sector ministries policies, programmes and
budgets.
8.
Human
rights of women and girls
(a)
Align
the legal and judicial system – i.e. laws, standards and policies – with
international laws and gender standards and instruments;
(b)
Review
and revise national constitutions and legal systems to systematically remove
all discriminatory laws, norms, practices and policies to make the legal
framework conform to international and regional instruments on women’s human
rights;
(c)
Build
the capacity of the judiciary and law enforcement agencies in gender and
women’s human rights and support the enforcement of laws to fight
discrimination against women and girls and support women to know and claim
their rights;
(d)
Develop
and implement awareness-raising programmes about the rights of women in the
official and national languages, aimed at men and teenage boys, to raise
awareness of the population on the rights of women and girls and ensure laws
and policies that protect human rights of women defenders against
stigmatization;
(e)
Establish
and popularize legal aid funds for underprivileged women;
(f)
Protect
women and girls from exploitation through social networks and combat
cybercrime;
(g)
Promote
and protect the rights of women and girls with disabilities and improve their
social and economic conditions, including with targeted measures and
strategies;
(h)
Adopt
and implement the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
9.
Women
and the media
(a)
Promote
women in decision-making positions in state and private media;
(b)
Strengthen
the access of rural and other underserved women to media, especially by
expanding community radio and mobile phone access;
(c)
Design,
create and support platforms that recognize positive media for gender equality;
(d)
Encourage
the media to promote public service on critical issues affecting women, such as
access to reproductive health information, family planning and the value of
girls’ education, and to engage in positive dialogues with men and boys on
equality, non-discrimination and violence against women;
(e)
Introduce
awareness-raising programmes on women’s rights, including in local languages;
(f)
Develop
and implement policies and laws creating an enabling environment that prevent
the use of social and other forms of new media as instruments of violence
against women and girls, exploitation of girls and cybercrime.
10.
Women,
the environment and climate change
(a)
Make
climate knowledge and information gender-responsive and accessible to women,
especially rural women;
(b)
Design
and implement programmes that harvest and value women’s indigenous knowledge
and practices, including in innovation processes;
(c)
Build
capacities in environmental public institutions to integrate gender concerns
into policymaking and programming for equitable sustainable development;
(d)
Strengthen
women’s capacities to manage and prevent natural disasters;
(e)
Undertake
ex-ante gender analyses of climate change risks to women’s livelihoods and
prepare emergency and long-term preparedness to mitigate those risks;
(f)
Invest
in climate-sensitive and gender-sensitive agricultural extension, including
adaptation and mitigation programmes;
(g)
Ensure
that external and domestic climate finance targets women’s specific needs,
constraints and perspectives, and provides incentives for women farmers to be
stewards of natural resources;
(h)
Provide access to clean water and renewable energy technologies to all households,
particularly to rural women, including by investing in and promoting the
development of alternative safe and clean energies (such as hydropower and
solar) in order to reduce reliance on non-sustainable energy sources;
(i)
Develop comprehensive gender-sensitive policies that address participation in
mitigation of the environment impact of large-scale mining and extractive
activities;
(j)
Promote mass media campaigns on climate change eventualities such as natural
disasters, with warning systems to save the lives of women and girls.
11.
The
girl child
(a)
Continue
to strengthen efforts to completely eliminate early child marriages by
criminalizing the practice and enforcing the age of marriage of 18 for girls,
in accordance with international norms and standards;
(b)
Criminalize
all forms of female genital mutilation, early child and forced marriages, and
other harmful traditional practices, and disallow judicial consent to marriage
in sexual violence cases;
(c)
Align
all laws and policies with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the
Maputo Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights;
(d)
Adopt
and enforce the International Labour Organization’s conventions,
recommendations and standards to protect girls from child labour;
(e)
Protect
girls against all forms of exploitation, including trafficking and sexual
slavery by armed groups.