Addis Ababa — The Consultative Forum on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment under the theme "The Role of Research Institutions and Universities in Harnessing the Potential of Agendas 2030 and 2063" co-organized by the African Centre for Gender (ACG) and UN Women, brought together 25 experts, researchers and scholars from African universities, research institutes, African think tanks working on gender and development. The meeting aimed at forging a strategic partnership on gender equality research agenda-setting and define a clear strategy for capacity building and for strengthening a common research agenda, within the context of Agenda 2030 and 2063.
The Director of Social Development Policy Division (SDPD) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), , in her opening address to the session emphasized that "while member States are, and will continue to be our main partners and constituency, we are mindful of the need to engage with critical non state actors including the several academic and research institutions and think-tanks as well as other civil society organizations to ensure a vibrant community of knowledge production and practice, focused on Africa's development priorities."
In her opening remarks, Ms. Letty Chiwara the UN Women Representative to Ethiopia, AUC and ECA highlighted the critical role of higher learning institutions in mobilizing African women and girls to genuinely participate in localization of gender equality goals and the eagerness of UN system to support the knowledge production undertaken across the continent.
ACG Coordinator, Ms. Thokozile Ruzvidzo stressed the importance of identifying the most effective strategies for increasing and disseminating high quality cutting edge research which can inspire ECA and ACG/SDPD. Among others, she also discussed the need for establishing consensus on capacity strategies, policy influence, strategic interventions and approaches for expanding and consolidating a pool of skilled Gender and Women's Studies researchers and experts within universities and independent gender research centres and institutions in Africa.
The discussions covered the different areas of academic research as well as its blind spots and took stock of readily available and growing body of home-grown research. Professor Julie Stewart underlined the mismatch between nationally ratified legal instruments for gender equality across the continent and their implementation and enforcement. Dr. Carla Braga highlighted the challenges faced on quality of public service delivery, particularly in education and health. Professor Joyce Endeley raised the critical issue of the scope of readily available but not sufficiently
disseminated research with respect to policy design. Dr Jack Abebe made the strong case for the partnership between UN family and higher learning institutions in Africa to be more systematic than it currently is from earlier phases of research to dissemination of knowledge and ultimately shaping development policies.
The facilitator Dr. Dzodzi Tsikata summarized the session by mentioning that "Much of the research done by academics has been focused on country preoccupations that are influencing our research rather than regional or sub regional issues. And if this is the case what does it mean for our research." After having mapped what knowledge products are available in gender and development research, the Consultative Forum will be digging deeper into areas of strategic and continuous research partnership whereby higher learning institutions can make use of a variety of instruments and tools developed by UN Women and ACG and influence the formulation of gender policies at global and regional levels.
The meeting is planned to go on for two days in Addis Ababa, covering the different issues and opportunities for higher learning Gender institutions, CSOs and think thanks to work with the ECA African Centre for Gender and UN Women.
