What: Global high-level event to accelerate investment and action to end female genital mutilation
Who: African Development Bank Group, United Nations Population Fund
When: 5 February 2021; 13:30 - 14:25 GMT
Where: Virtual (YouTube)
African Development Bank Group Acting Vice President for Agriculture, Human and Social Development, Wambui Gichuri, will represent the Bank's President Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina at a funding session panel to mark the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation.
The United Nations Population Fund global high-level event is intended to accelerate investment and action to end female genital mutilation.
The event is part of activities marking International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, celebrated on February 6 each year. This year's theme is No Time for Global Inaction - Unite, Fund, and Act to End Female Genital Mutilation.
Acting Vice President Gichuri will be joined on the panel by Per Olsson Fridh, State Secretary, Sweden; Dag Inge Ulstein, Minister of International Development, Norway; and Ms. Jutta Urpilainen, Commissioner for International Partnerships, European Union.
Female genital mutilation, or FGM, has been practiced for thousands of years. In the last two decades, the proportion of girls and women in high-prevalence countries who want the practice to stop has doubled, according to UNFPA's 2020 State of World Population report.
Ending female genital mutilation worldwide by 2030 will cost an estimated $2.4 billion, an investment that would spare millions of girls and women from the health and economic risks associated with the practice.
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