Excerpt from Dr. Jumai Ahmadu Opening Speech at Africa Women Conference Kigali-Rwanda 2021

The Significance of this 2021 African Women Conference clearly demonstrates that increased in participation of women in Government leads to rapid growth and development of such a Country.

The Africa Women Conference was born out the of the realisation that the Africa Women have a lot to contribute towards the growth and development of dear mother Africa.

The Vision of AWC was conceived in 2017 when four African Women mooted the Idea off having a forum where the African woman could gather and deliberate on issues affecting them, share ideas and proffer homegrown solutions to such problems.

This led to the AWC’s Inaugural conference held in March 2018 in New York, during the commission on the Status of Women Conference (CSW) by the United Nations.

We are please to say that the Conference has evolved over the years and improved owing to faithful implementation of resolutions reached in previous Conferences.

As a group, we remain resolute and determine to keep implementing our resolutions even with limited resources at our disposal.

The Africa Women Conference (AWC) at Namibia, resolved to have a forum where young girls are empowered with Skills to prepare them for leadership positions and be self-reliance.

This gave birth to the Voice of the Girls parliament, which we merged with the Girls Realize your Potential Project of the Helpline Foundation for the Needy, Abuja.

As a result of these, we have young girls today who can stand before leaders Confidently and Eloquently to express themselves, taking positions on issues that affect them.

Other resolutions we have successfully implemented include strengthening of our non-profit revolving Loan Scheme where Clusters of women are given loan facilities to boost their income and improv savings culture.

It may interest you to know that when we started, we had barely 100 women, but the number has grown to over 600 today, and still counting.

At the November 2019 Conference in Marakesh, Morocco, it was resolved to Establish the AWC Leadership Development Centre for Women and Girls.

However, this was delayed due to the lockdown resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and its attendant consequences.

The project has resumed with the acquisition of land and the project design is at an advanced stage.
We are optimistic that we will present a progress report at our next conference.
The task ahead is daunting but not insurmountable.
We are inspired by the SDG Goal 17 which is focused on strengthening the means of implementing and revitalizing global partnerships for sustainable development.
We believe that in collaboration with other development partners, we will achieve our dreams.

The Africa Women Conference (AWC) hope to partner with Rwanda NGOs with similar objectives to ensure that African women fully realize their potentials by implementing resolutions that are not only domesticated in Nigeria but also in the host hotel County and other willing countries in the Continent .

The task ahead may not be easy, but time has tested our strength as women in this continent and elsewhere.

Gladly, we have continued to prevail and thrive.

It is on this note I charge all of us to mingle more, learn more, network more and let us cross fertilize ideas on how best to help each other and improve our participating in decision making processes that will lead to building an inclusive and sustainable post COVID-19 economy in Africa.

Finally, Dr. Jumai Ahmadu declared Africa Women Conference Kigali-Rwanda 2021 open .

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