Source: The Nigerian Observer
President Goodluck Jonathan has directed the immediate enlistment and training of female regular combatant commission officers into the Nigerian armed forces.
Source: WOMENSENEWS
low-cost ultrasound system is on its way to Uganda in early summer. Produced by students at the University of Washington, it's intended to help midwives battle the high death rate in the country's rural areas.
Source: Enough Project at the Center for American Progress
With the triumphant success of the South Sudan referendum, the transitioning state is looking ahead toward consultations regarding the new constitution and government. Although this transitional phase poses major challenges, it also holds an unparalleled window of opportunity for marginalized groups to push for inclusive rights and representation—especially women.
Source: Africa Review
Boys and girls should not sit in the same classroom, radical Islamist group Al-Shabaab has ordered.
Cote d'Ivoire: Political Crisis in Côte d’Ivoire: The Impact on Women and Women’s Rights Organizatio
Source: AWID
Côte d’Ivoire has been in a political impasse since the declaration of contested results of a second round of presidential elections held in November 2010. Since both candidates claimed victory and have been sworn in, the country has two presidents and two governments.
Source: Mmegi Online
Media in Southern Africa still has a long way to go towards gender sensitive reporting in newsrooms, a study by Gender Links has revealed.
Source: IPS
"The agenda for women’s rights and empowerment in each country must be supported by the political leadership," says Norah Matovu-Winyi, Executive Director, African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET).
Source: Afrique en Ligne
Dakar, Senegal - African female media practitioners and those in the civil society here Thursday called on governments in the continent to enforce the texts, conventions and protocols they signed on the protection of women's rights. Such rights protection treaty included the African Charter of Human and Peoples' Rights on the rights of women. It was adopted in 2003 during the African Union (AU) Summit in Maputo, Mozambique, to promote and respect women's fundamental rights.
Source: The Guardian
Beneficiaries of the Women Empowerment in Zanzibar (Weza) project have engaged in clove-soap making to fight abject poverty and boost their incomes.
Source: United Nations
In many traditional cultures, women aren't allowed to own or inherit property. Losing a husband through death or divorce can be a guarantee of poverty. But two women in Malawi have defied that fate. Here's their story.
Source: GhanaWeb
Economic Affairs (IEA) on Saturday set in motion efforts to galvanise stakeholder support, to develop a manual on strategies and guidelines to increase the number of women elected to parliament in 2012.
Source: GhanaWeb
Bus-Kwofie, former District Chief Executive (DCE) for Ahanta West District, has underscored the need for both government and political parties to allocate a quota of portfolios to women, to whip up their interest in governance.
Source: SFGate
In 2011, Ban Ki-moon begins the fifth year of his five-year term as United Nations secretary-general, and a discussion will begin about a possible extension of his term or a possible successor for him.
Source: The Ghana News Agency (GNA)
More than 20 "kayayee" (female porters) from Agbogbloshie and Malamata markets and Tema Lorry Station in Accra have received confidence building training and education on HIV/AIDS and reproductive health issues, in order to serve as peer educators to their colleagues.
Source: UN News Center
The Security Council, which normally deals with country-specific issues of war and peace such as the Middle East or Sudan, today held a day-long, high-level debate on the root causes that fuel conflict in the world, like poverty and under-development.
Source: AllAfrica
Aggrieved female aspirants who failed to clinch the party's ticket in the last Peoples Democratic Party's primaries have been advised not to leave the party.
Source: UN News Center
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has teamed up with a group of artists from the United States and Tanzania to raise awareness, through music, on the need to have better maternal health services in the East African nation, where deaths related to childbearing remain a serious challenge.
Source: UN News Center
As part of its campaign against rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the United Nations and its partners this week opened a centre in the eastern city of Bukavu to provide a safe haven and training programmes for survivors of sexual violence.
Source: Guardian
"We know that the African Union summit is still very masculine but we are trying to bring in the voices of women," said Gertrude Mongella, former president of the Pan-African parliament, explaining the rationale behind the shadow summit organised by the Gender is my Agenda Campaign (Gimac) in Addis Ababa on 24-26 January. A difficult proposition in a forum where, at the very highest level, there is only one female representative, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia.
Source: Eyewitness News
Graca Machel on Wednesday said the next most important revolution for women after political freedom is economic control.