Launch of African Women's Decade

The African Women's Decade will be launched on 15 October 2010, at the Kenyatta Conference Center in Nairobi Kenya. The occasion is highly significant on the African Union calendar for 2010 as it was the AU Heads of State and Government who declared 2010-2020 as the African Women's Decade at their February 2009 Session in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Consequently the Launch of the Decade has been planned to coincide with the International Rural Women's Day, which is also on 15 October. It is also in line with the theme of the Decade which is "Grassroots approach to Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment. The launch will be preceded by important forums including: an experts meeting to be held on 10 and 11 October and a ministerial meeting on 14th October The launch itself will be attended by AU Heads of States and Government, first ladies, Vice Presidents, AU Ministers of Women, Gender, Social Development, men champions for gender equality and women's empowerment, gender activists, development partners, Civil Society Organization (CSO's), academia, the private sector and grassroots women.

In order to ensure the success of the launch and its preceding meetings, the Commission of the African Union has been working closely with the relevant Ministries in Kenya and the Kenyan Embassy in Ethiopia. The African Women's Decade aims to advance gender equality by accelerating implementation of Dakar, Beijing and AU Assembly Decisions on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment (GEWE), through dual top down and bottom up approach which is inclusive of grassroots participation. The objective of the African Women's Decade is to re-invigorate commitments to accelerated implementation of agreed global and regional commitments of gender equality and women empowerment (GEWE).

Special focus will be on these ten themes: Fighting Poverty and Promoting Economic Empowerment of Women and Entrepreneurship: Agriculture and Food Security: Health, Maternal Mortality and HIV&AIDS; Education, Science and Technology; Environment and Climate Change; Peace and Security and Violence Against Women; Governance and Legal Protection; Finance and Gender Budgets; Women In Decision Making positions; Young Women's Movements.

All media representatives are invited to attend the launch and its programmes. The full programme is attached; Media inquiries and requests for interviews may be forwarded to Mrs Wynne Musabayana; Deputy Head of Communication and Information; AUC on wynnemusabayana@yahoo.com.