The African Women's Forum

Interview de Mme Aicha Bah Diallo, Membre du Comité d'Honneur de l'African Women's Forum, dans Paris Match

L’Afrique avance, mais trop peu au profit des Africains.

Aicha Bah Diallo Pete Marovich / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP

Les chiffres de la gouvernance en Afrique en 2018 de l’index Mo Ibrahim montrent la difficulté pour la société civile à bénéficier de la croissance économique du continent.

La Fondation Mo Ibrahim sort en ce mois de novembre son index de mesure du développement sur le continent entre 2008 et 2017. Même si la croissance africaine a explosé sur cette période, le développement durable et profitable aux populations, lui, reste très largement en dessous des prévisions. Depuis dix ans la fondation du milliardaire anglo-soudanais - qui a fait fortune dans les Telecom avec l’opérateur Celtel - exploite une centaine d’indicateurs provenant de trente cinq sources de données indépendantes pour faire ressortir les réalités de la vie quotidienne des Africains. Nous avons demandé à Aicha Bah Diallo, ancienne ministre de l’éducation en Guinée et membre du jury du prix Mo Ibrahim, de commenter les résultats du rapport.

 

Alors que le PIB du continent africain a augmenté de 39,7% de 2008 à 2017, le taux de Développement économique durable n’a lui augmenté que de 0,2 % .
Source : Indice Ibrahim de la gouvernance en Afrique 2018 - Fondation Mo Ibrahim.

L’index affiche le progrès d’une quinzaine de pays en terme de respect des droits de l’homme, de développement économique durable, et de développement humain. Comme la Côte d’Ivoire qui enregistre la plus grosse progression du continent (+12 points) ou le Maroc (+10 points) sur dix ans. En bout de course, la Libye (- 15,5 points) et le Mali (- 5 points) et une dizaine d’autres pays semblent décrocher. Peut-on parler d’une Afrique à deux vitesses ?
Oui, et on souhaite qu’avec ce rapport le groupe le premier serve de locomotive et que celui qui ne suit pas se secoue ! Lorsque les gouvernements vont lire cet index, tout comme les personnes de la société civile, ils vont lire l’index et j’espère que ces recherches précises et incontestables vont jouer comme un électrochoc pour les gouvernants. Que devant l’identification des lacunes ou des problèmes catégorie par catégorie, les gouvernements vont utiliser l’index comme un outil de travail pour leurs politiques.

Avez vous été surprise par l’une des entrées de ce rapport ?
Oui, j’ai été surprise par la baisse du secteur de l’éducation... Bien sur je pense voir là le résultat de la baisse de la formation des enseignants. Leurs salaires ont aussi baissé et il y a eu beaucoup de grèves, ce qui forcement fait baisser le niveau.

Même si le score du continent en matière d’éducation a progressé sur la décennie il a décliné durant les cinq dernières années dans 27 des 54 pays du continent, soit pour 52.8% de la jeunesse africaine.
Source : Indice Ibrahim de la gouvernance en Afrique 2018 - Fondation Mo Ibrahim.

Comment expliquer la difficulté des Etats à la formation des jeunes alors que globalement le niveau d’étude des nouvelles générations africaines progressait depuis plusieurs décennies ?
De 1990 à 2005, les institutions ont poussé les pays africains à mettre l’accent sur l’éducation primaire. Mais ce n’est qu’en 2005 qu’on a compris l’importance du système secondaire. C’est à partir de là qu’on a commencé à voir les besoins de manière globale. Les universités en Afrique forment plutôt des chômeurs. Les anciennes générations ne valorisaient pas les formations techniques et professionnelles. Or nous en avons besoin plus que jamais aujourd’hui. Le secteur privé peut contribuer à financer le secteur de l’éducation, il faut miser sur les entreprises qui forment directement pour répondre à leurs demandes. On pourrait augmenter cette formation, en formant directement les jeunes aux besoins des entreprises. Ce qu’il faut c’est une harmonisation entre formation entre besoins !

Le rapport montre que la part d’Africains en âge de travailler va progresser de près de 30% pour la prochaine décennie, mais que le score moyen de la catégorie « Environnement des entreprises » a lui perdu presque 5 % depuis 2008. Quels sont les risques d’un tel décalage entre le nombre de personnes sur le marché du travail et le taux de chômages parfois explosifs dans certains pays ?
C’est une bombe a retardement ! Un jour nous savons que les jeunes, plus de 750 millions de citoyens vont venir taper à la porte pour avoir des emplois…

Les résultats donnés par l’index vous laissent-ils toujours optimiste ?
La participation et les droits humains permettent de dire que l’on progresse. Mais comme on a pu le voir pour certains pays où la situation s’est lourdement dégradée il faut continuer d’attirer l’attention de tous sur la sécurité et l’Etat de droit pour permettre une réelle avancée en terme de gouvernance et donc de développement économique durable et de développement humain.

SOURCE : Cliquez ici

Crans Montana TV interviewed prominent personalities during the last African Women's Forum in Geneva

 

During the last African Women's Forum meeting, held on October 26
at the United Nations Office at Geneva, the Crans Montana TV
interviewed prominent personalities who attended the meeting. 

 

Mr. Michael Møller
Director General
United Nations Office at Geneva 

 

 Mr. Alan Doss
President
Kofi Annan Foundation

 

 Mrs. Maria Helena Semedo
Dep. Director General
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 

 

Mrs. Maria Consuelo Nguema Oyana
Minister of Social Affairs and Gender Equality
Equatorial Guinea 

 

Mr. Georges Kazadi Kabongo
Minister of Agriculture
DR Congo 

 

 Mr. Hammou Ouhelli
Secretary of State for Rural Development, Water and Forests
Morocco

 

HRH Princess Sanyogita Atrey
Chairperson & Managing Director
SG18 Realty, India

  

Mrs. Gordana Jerger
Director, Geneva Office
World Food Programme 

 

Special Meeting of the African Women’s Forum at the UN Headquarters in Geneva

 

In the framework of the 20th Annual Session of the Homeland & Global Security Forum, the Crans Montana African Women’s Forum organized a half-day discussion in the prestigious setting of the United Nations Office at Geneva to address the Role of rural Women for sustainable and fair Agriculture.

This exceptional meeting was co-chaired by Amb. Jean-Paul Carteron, Honorary Chairman & Founder of the Crans Montana Forum, and Mrs. Maria Helena Semedo, Dep. Director General, Natural Ressources at FAO, and moderated by Mrs. Lady Ngo Many Epesse, President of the Women Environmental Covenant.

 

Among the personalities who attended the meeting :

 

Hommage à M. Kofi Annan, Secrétaire Général des Nations Unies à l'occasion de l'African Women's Forum au Palais des Nations

 

 

Lors de la réunion de son African Women’s Forum, qui s'est tenue dans le cadre prestigieux de l'Office des Nations Unies à Genève, le Forum de Crans Montana a rendu hommage à l’homme de paix que fut le défunt Secrétaire Général des Nations Unies, Monsieur Kofi Annan.

 

Aussi, le Forum de Crans Montana a souhaité lui décerner à titre posthume le PRIX DE LA FONDATION 2018, en présence de Monsieur Michael Moller, Directeur Général de l'Office des Nations Unies à Genève et de Monsieur Alan Doss, Président de la Fondation Kofi Annan.

 

Remarks by Mr. Alan Doss, President, Kofi Annan Foundation, on the occasion of the African Women’s Forum

 

I am honoured to be with you today for this tribute to Kofi Annan. On behalf of his wife, Nane, and the Kofi Annan Foundation, I would like to thank the Crans Montana Forum for awarding the prestigious Prix de la Fondation posthumously to Kofi Annan. Mrs. Annan, who cannot be with us today, has asked me to express her deep gratitude for this gracious act honouring the legacy of her late husband.

In the course of his remarkable life and career, Kofi Annan, as Secretary General of the United Nations, Nobel peace laureate and later as Chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation energetically pursued his vision for a fairer, more peaceful world. “Healthy societies”, he would say, “are built on peace, inclusive development, and human rights.” But he recognised that women must play a central and critical role in building healthy societies. Allow me to quote him again: “When women thrive, all of society benefits, and succeeding generations are given a better start in life”.

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goal on gender equality is thus not only deeply valuable in its own right but one of the best means of securing progress on all the other SDGs. That is why the Women’s Forum provides such an apt venue to honour Kofi Annan. He recognised clearly the link between gender equality and peace and sustainable development, particularly for Africa, for which he naturally felt a personal responsibility. He would be especially pleased that the theme of the Forum is the role of women in agriculture.

Kofi Annan was convinced that the development of African agriculture, and securing food security, was the best way to address poverty and spur growth in Africa. Here too he argued that empowering and aiding women farmers is one of the best ways to end poverty on the continent. For Kofi Annan, the struggle for gender equality and the eradication of hunger were vital complementary steps on the road to creating a better world.

Now that he is no longer among us, it is up to all of us to ensure that Kofi Annan’s ideals live on. Such was his wish and such is our mission at the Kofi Annan Foundation. This award will serve as a powerful reminder of Kofi Annan’s quiet wisdom, the depth of his compassion, and the clarity of his vision. As we look to the future, we should draw inspiration from his life and continue his tireless quest for a fairer, more peaceful world.

Thank you.

Alan Doss
President, Kofi Annan Foundation

Opening remarks by Mr. Michael Møller, Director General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, on the occasion of the African Women’s Forum

Prime Minister,

Excellences,

Ladies and gentlemen,

A very warm welcome to the Palais des Nations. It is indeed a pleasure to join you today.

We are meeting three years into our collective journey to make the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development a reality. Our ambitions are crystal clear: a world free of poverty and hunger; a fairer, more equal world; a world that respects the limits of nature.

We are making progress, embracing change, and increasingly working together and learning from each other across regions and disciplines.

But we also know we are not moving fast enough. In some areas, we risk backsliding.

And just as progress in one area supports progress in the other, so too does failure in one force failure in the other.

This interdependency is true across the full spectrum of the 2030 Agenda, but it is particularly pronounced in the links between empowering women on the one hand and eradicating poverty and ending hunger on the other, the focus of our discussion today.

Let me approach this in the context of a broad picture. And let’s be clear. We’re failing women the world over, in rural and in urban areas, in the Global North and in the Global South - to the detriment of us all.

Just 5 percent of heads of state and government are women. Just 5 percent of women lead the world’s largest companies.

These abysmal numbers are the result of practical and cultural obstacles women face at all levels, from lack of opportunity to lack of basic human decency, from explicit legal barriers to implicit attitudes and cultural norms.

Things are changing of course, with inspiring trailblazers all over the planet, in Africa in particular. Just yesterday, I was excited to see my former colleague Sahle-Work Zewde elected Ethiopia’s first female president. 

And I was encouraged to learn that the highest share of women in the workforce globally is found in Africa.

But the pace of change is too slow. Just think that it would take another 217 years to achieve gender equality if we don’t accelerate our efforts.

Promoting equality is a fundamental goal in itself. But more than this, we simply cannot address the complex and growing global challenges of our day without the full capacity of half of our population. 

Women’s equal participation in the labour force would unlock trillions for our global economy - in London as much as in Lagos, in rural Africa as much as in America’s corn belt.

Women are proven agents of sustainable development, investing salaries and profits into their families and communities, with benefits for health, education, and stability.

With benefits, crucially, for food security.

For in our world of plenty, one person in nine still does not have enough to eat. Most of them are women.

And it could yet get worse. From overcultivation to overgrazing, from deforestation to desertification: once fertile soils turn into barren land, triggering humanitarian and economic crises.

Meanwhile, food demand only grows - in Africa, by over 50 percent in the coming years.

Clearly, we need to redouble our efforts promoting and applying sustainable agricultural practices.

But thinking about the right answer to this challenge also brings me back to the interdependency I mentioned at the outset.

And it reminds me, as so often, of Kofi Annan, who saw this earlier than most. Over a decade ago, he told us that, and I quote him “no tool for development is more effective than the empowerment of women…no other policy as likely to raise productivity…and no policy as sure to improve nutrition and promote health.”

And we have since found powerful evidence that there is also no policy more important in sustaining peace. In fact, peace agreements are 30 percent more likely to last when women are meaningfully represented at the negotiating table - instead of routinely excluded.

All of which is why Kofi Annan used to say that we are not facing “problems in search of a solution…We know what works, and what doesn’t.”

“What doesn’t work” is continuing business as usual, with all its short-sightedness and power imbalances.

“What works”, by contrast, is challenging convention, is taking the holistic view, is acting sustainably. “What works”, above all, is women’s empowerment at all levels.

Which is why your theme today - “African women, the driving force for economic and social development” - is spot on.

All across the continent, women are taking charge, as entrepreneurs, as innovators, as pioneers - they are the ones paving the way towards an Africa that is inclusive and integrated; prosperous and vibrant.

Today’s Forum is a chance to move ahead in the fight for gender equality, to keep the ambition high and work together in our collective endeavour for a better, more just future.

I wish you every success in your discussions.

And I thank you very much for being here today.