AFRICA: Call for AU Fees to go Towards Empowering Women

Pretoria - Ministers of Women's Affairs from various African countries have called for 1 percent of the African Union's membership fees to be put towards empowering women on the continent.

The money could be used to set up and finance an Empowerment Fund for Women which will support various women's projects under the Decade of African Women (2010-2020), according to the ministers.

The Decade of African Women was launched in Nairobi on Friday following last year's decision by the AU Heads of States to declare year 2010 - 2020 a decade of African women.

Attending the launch of the Decade on behalf of South Africa, Minister for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities, Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya said it was necessary for African governments to allocate more resources to capacitate Ministries for Women and other gender institutions to improve the status of women in the continent.

"Our aim is to mobilise resources that will benefit South African women," said Minister Mayende-Sibiya.

Over the next ten years, the Decade of African Women Campaign will focus on the following themes:

* Fighting poverty and promoting economic empowerment of women and entrepreneurship
* Agriculture and food security
* Health, maternal mortality and HIV and 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
* Mentoring youth (boys and girls) to be champions of gender equality

A number of programmes will be initiated in line with the themes and the African Women's Fund will be the vehicle of mobilising resources for the activities.

Each Member State is expected to establish national committees comprising all segments of society. The national committees should propose one project for each theme per year to be supported by the African Women's Fund.