Gender Justice and Women’s Rights

Gender Justice and Women’s Rights

Women taking part in community dialogue forum

The Pan Africa Program will strive to address the power imbalance between women and men to bring sustainable change. We will advocate for increased and responsible public and private investment that support small scale farmers, especially women in realizing their rights and entitlements to food security, employment opportunity, land ownership and climate justice. The Gender Justice has developed programmes spanning on the spheres of Women Land Rights, Violence against Women and Girls, Women’s Peace and Security, and Ensuring implementation of Women’s Rights instruments in Africa.

Our work on gender justice incorporates the global Enough Campaign and aims to address the contradiction between gender legal provisions in RECs, African Union instruments, National legislative frameworks and practice in gender laws, breaking down harmful cultural and or social norms and transforming discriminatory institutional settings, as well as securing women’s economic, social and political participation. Key programme interventions includes

  • Expand Movement/ Coalition Building on Women Rights; Strengthen collaboration with women’s rights organizations and Oxfam in-country offices to mobilize stakeholders to develop, allocate resources and implement Multi-Sectoral Approaches and frameworks for domestication of the instruments key to women rights while challenging retrogressive cultural practises and believes.
  • Advancing the domestication of African Union (AU) framework on Land Policy Investment in Africa, the guiding principles on Large Scale Land Based Investments (LSLBI) in Agriculture in Africa and the adoption of a specific framework on women land rights in Africa by the AU.
  • Build collective power and create strategic champions and role models amongst those in positions of power and authority (legislators, security sector representatives, etc.)
  • Increase Women’s participation and transformative leadership: Our work will focus on building the capacity of women and increasing their voices by facilitating them to participate in all decision-making spaces at AU and Regional Economic Commissions (RECs) level to promote transformative leadership in decision-making, the economy and in society.
  • Build the capacity of women’s rights organizations in Africa to engage in economic policy debates at regional and international level.
  • Generate Africa wide evidence on gender gaps in macro-economic policies for selected countries. This will inform our advocacy in challenging heads of states/governments to increase investments in closing the gender inequality financing gaps.

Countries where this programe is being integrated 

Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Liberia, South Africa, Nigeria, South Sudan, Mozambique, Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi, Tunisia, Senegal, Cameroon, Togo and Ghana.

Key Stakeholders we work with to implement this program

CSOs: Solidarity for Africa Women’s Rights (SOAWR), The African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), International Land Coalition (ILC), Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian studies (PLAAS), International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), Platform Regionale des Organisations Paysannes d'Adrique Centrele (PROPAC), Women In Law and Development, WiLDAF, Action Aid/.

AU organs: African Union Commission (AUC), African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACPHR), Women Gender Directorate, Office of the special envoy on Gender – Africa Development Bank (AfDB).

RECs: Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS), Southern Africa Development Cooperation (SADC), East Africa Legislative Assembly (EALA), East African Commission (EAC) among others.

National governments in collaboration with Oxfam Country Offices, and local partners in respective countries.