AU’s Roadmap to Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment.

The African Union’s Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment  Strategy (2018-2028) was launched during the AU Summit in February 2019. This strategy takes an all-around and multi-sectoral approach, building on lessons from the 2009 gender policy.

It is designed to create real change by tackling the key difficulty Gender Equality that prevent women and girls from fully perform in economic, political, and social life.The GEWE Strategy serves as a framework to support women’s voices and ensure their concerns are addressed.

It indicate effective laws and proper funding for gender equality action, making sure policies lead to real results. This document is a roadmap for action, guiding the AU in developing impactful programs that empower women and girls across Africa and in the going.The GEWE Strategy is built on four key pillars, each designed to drive meaningful progress in gender equality and women’s empowerment. Each pillar outlines key outcomes and proposed activities to support its objectives.

Maximising Opportunities, Outcomes, and e-Tech Dividends

This pillar recognizes that for women to be economically empowered and contribute to sustainable development, they need access to quality education and control over productive resources.

Launching a continental campaign to declare illiteracy a harmful traditional practice and make being out of school a punishable offense.

Advocating for and lobbying e-Tech firms and financial institutions Gender Equality to fund startups and innovation hubs that create gender-focused solutions and boost women’s participation in the technology space.

Quality, Security, and Resilience

Women and girls’ rights to dignity, security, and bodily and psychological well-being are often threatened by violence and harmful practices such as early child marriage and female private parts  disability.

To address this, the strategy proposes:Implementing AU guidelines on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG).Funding national projects to correct perpetrators of violence against women  and girls.

Effective Laws, Policies, and Institutions

While Africa has made strides in adopting progressive laws and policies, there is still a gap in implementation, and gender-focused institutions remain underfunded.

This pillar aims to strengthen these institutions by:Launching Gender Equality the “All for Maputo Protocol Programme”, which will drive the ratification, domestication, and implementation of the Maputo Protocol across all African nations.

Leadership, Voice, and Visibility

For women to have a real voice, they must be equally Gender Equality represented in decision-making spaces and have their contributions acknowledged.

To achieve this, the strategy proposes: Rewriting the African narrative to include women’s contributions. As former AUC Chairperson H.E Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said, If we don’t put women in history books, they get edited out of history.

Publishing knowledge products, including:

A Historic African Women’s Booklet documenting the stories of women who played key roles in African liberation movements.

Bringing the Strategy to LifeTo turn this vision into reality, the Women, Gender and Development Directorate  has developed three key documents:
1. Operational Plan
2. Results Framework
3. Harmonisation

MatrixThese documents will guide the implementation of the GEWE Strategy, ensuring alignment with the specific priorities of Member States and Regional Economic Communities (RECs).

Following a validation workshop in June, the documents will be presented for approval at the upcoming Specialised Technical Committee on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in October, where African Union Ministers in charge of gender and women’s affairs will review and adopt them.

This strategy marks a bold step towards an Africa where women are empower, protected, and positioned as key drivers of sustainable development.