Dispatch from the 3rd African Girls’ Summit.
The 3rd African Girls’ Summit (AGS) is a continent-wide advocacy platform that seeks to draw attention to the social, legal and institutional issues around Culture, Human Rights and Accountability, as they intersect with eliminating harmful practices, while looking at progress achieved since the first AGS in 2015.
The 3rd AGS took place November 16–18, 2021, in Niamey and was hosted by the Republic of Niger and the African Union Commission–Health, Humanitarian Affairs & Social Development.
We loved this event and do you know why?
Because the girls and young girls were there to speak on their own agenda!
More than 100 young adolescent girls and stakeholders gathered at the summit, themed “Culture, Human Rights and Accountability – Accelerating Elimination of Harmful Practices.” African girls took center stage to share their experience and expectations and discuss challenges and frustrations they face daily.
Discussion topics included child marriage, teenage pregnancy, female genital mutilation, sexual abuse and human trafficking, how self-esteem issues hinder the pursuit of STEM education and TVET (technical education and vocational training), male-dominated jobs and so on.
Out of all these subjects, which are often considered as taboo in our society, the summit mainly focused on the issue of gender equality in education.
Everybody speaks about girls’ education, but many people still do not understand its importance, its foundation and its impact on girls’ lives, society, and most importantly, on our continent—Africa.
At the summit, the African Union International Center for Girls’ & Women’s Education in Africa (AU/CIEFFA), the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), Girls Not Brides and UNESCO, in collaboration with UN WOMEN, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and UNICEF, co-organized a parallel session themed “Harnessing Girls’ Education for the Africa We Want.”
Young girls and experts joined to discuss laws, innovations and partnerships for gender-transformative education.
The session covered progress made, best practices and barriers for domesticating girls’ rights to quality education.
Delegates from Niger explained how the government implemented different initiatives and policies to promote access to girls’ education amid a high child marriage rate, including establishing gender units across all ministries, setting up a girls’ employment national program, developing a strategy to accelerate training of adolescent girls and young women, and allocating 22% of the national budget to education.
In Ethiopia, where 3.5 million of the 6 million out-of-school children are girls, the Ministry of Education developed a policy anchored on pillars of quality, relevance, equity, internal efficiency and access combined with a girls’ education strategy to address harmful practices and promote partnerships.
With support from UN Women, a new curriculum and gender-responsive textbooks were developed.
AU/CIEFFA, UNESCO, UNAIDS and the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) shared their respective and innovative tools on legal instruments on girls’ education (The Compendium), data and innovative tools such as the Gender at the Centre Initiative.
A 16-year-old girl from Niger said, “Give us books to read and not husbands!’’
Increase budget allocation in all relevant sectors, including health, education, child protection, and ending child marriage and female genital mutilation, through an integrated, inclusive and participatory costing framework.
The Niamey Call to Action reinforced the importance of adequately funding education and will only be achieved if AU member states in conjunction with numerous other stakeholders commit to act on the following recommendations:
AU member states should effectively implement and domesticate existing instruments pertaining to girls’ and women’s education, such as the Gender Equality Strategy for the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (GES4CESA) and the Sustainable Development Goal 4 on quality education.
African ministries of education should make schools safe and remove harmful educational policies that discriminate girls’ access to education, such as expulsion due to pregnancy, and take action to end child marriage, violence against women and girls, and child labor. This can be done through implementing innovative strategies, broad partnerships and financing mechanisms such as:
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