AFRICA: Africa Regional Young Women's Leadership Institute Underway

An Africa Regional Young Women's Leadership Institute (YWLI) yesterday, began in Accra with a call for a vibrant young women's movement to fight gender stereotypes and empower women to reach their full potential in both private and public life.

Thirty participants are attending the five day-meeting, the first in the series of the regional institute for young women, which is being held on the theme, “Young women re-defining and transforming the leadership agenda in Africa – A strategic approach towards sustainable democracy and development in the region”.

The YWLI is a collaborative project of the Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development and Peace (WLP)—USA in partnership with its Africa hub, BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights—Nigeria.

The objectives of the Institute include, empowering young women across Africa to embrace the principles of horizontal, participatory and truly democratic leadership, and enabling participants to identify and develop a shared vision, and communication, mobilization and advocacy skills, among others, for effective leadership.

The Institute also aims to identify seemingly insurmountable challenges specific to young women's leadership in the region and to explore ways of overcoming these challenges.

Ms. Chibogu Obinwa, Acting Executive Director of BAOBAB-WLP Africa, in her welcome address, said, the WLP agenda was committed to encouraging a transformative model of leadership within the Africa region.

This model of leadership, Ms. Chibogu said, will be one that will encourage young women to take up leadership challenges with the advantage of innovative technologies and media to mobilize support, build solidarity, information exchange networks and initiate and sustain a formidable movement of new leaders that will ultimately transform the leadership agenda within the region.

She disclosed that, the WLP had conducted training in over 20 countries in Africa, The middle East, Latin America and Asia, adding that, in the past one year, the partnership contributed to gender equality movement-building by training over 2,300 activists, grassroots entrepreneurs, teachers, politicians and civil servants as well as 250 youth.

Ms. Chibogu expressed the hope that, the meeting will translate into further collaboration towards enhancing women's visibility and participation in all spheres of development in the region.