Ms. Lalla Ben Barka, deputy executive secretary of the Commission, said this here on Monday at the opening ceremony of the African regional conference on women (Beijing +15) in Banjul, Gambia.
Supporting stronger role for African women will boost the economy, reduce infertility, improve child survival and slow population explosion, which are all proven ways to help achieve and maintain family stability and national development, she said.
With only five years remaining to the global landmark of Beijing+20 in 2015, it is high time Africa departed from this unproductive rule of 'doing business as usual', Barka warned.
Barka said the time for African women to revisit their habits and action was now, because women were still bearing the brunt of all types of shortcomings, crises, wars and conflicts, just to name a few.
She further said the full effects on women and girls were still unfolding and being analysed but that they were already facing discrimination and disadvantaged, poverty and malnutrition stricken.
According to her, there is also growing recognition of the potentially significant effects of climate change on the lives of women and girls, particularly given their roles as food producers and their household responsibilities.
Barka noted that these crises might also present an opportunity to challenge discriminatory patterns and address gender bias and inequality as the global economy was being reformed and the world trying to address climate change and its negative implications.
Despite the progress that had been achieved, Barka outlined the previous review and underlined that many constraints were still challenging African government's efforts in the area of gender mainstreaming.
She also said policies and programmes were still treating gender concern as separate project interventions and the concept of main-streaming was cosmetic and continues to face resistance, adding that gender policies wedre not always integrated into sectoral plans as gender issues had just started featuring in sector budgets.
Based on last review, the ECA has formulated and implemented a follow-up strategy to identify most pressing priorities and develop strategic and actions to be undertaken by member countries in order to accelerate the implementation of Beijing Platform for action in Africa, she noted.
The ECA scribe said the strategy was endorsed during the previous sessions of the Committee on Women and Development (CWD) which met Monday in a different foum and with a different structure.
Banjul - 16/11/2009
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