Links
Africa's success stories in gender empowerment
Whenever gender empowerment is a vibrant topic of discussion internationally, some of the countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America are invariably singled out for their success stories in politics, education, health care or civil liberties even as Africa is mostly left out of political reckoning–and wrongly so.
Rwanda has provided global leadership in terms of women holding elected office, with more than half of all its parliamentary seats filled by women, says Litha Musyimi-Ogana, director of women, gender and development directorate at the 53-member African Union (AU), the largest single coalition of African nations.
Cape Verde, another African high achiever, has "had the highest level of cabinet ministers in the world:" at last count, about 12 out of 17.
But still, Musyimi-Ogana points out, the AU is aware that although 70 percent of its members have gender policies, there are "huge implementation challenges".