Empowering women and girls to take charge of their own lives

The Palais du Peuple hosted last Wednesday the launching ceremony of the Project "Support for the Empowerment of Women and the Protection of the Rights of Women and Girls". This project initiated with the support of the European Union will be jointly implemented by UNDP, UNICEF and UNFPA under the coordination of the Ministry of Women and Family. The Government of Djibouti has prioritized the empowerment of vulnerable women and girls, the protection of girls' rights, women's autonomy and decision-making and improving access to basic social services such as family planning..

The empowerment of women and girls has been proven repeatedly to have a multiplier effect and help stimulate economic growth and development in all areas. Investing in women's economic empowerment is the surest route to gender equality, poverty eradication and inclusive economic growth.

Women make an enormous contribution to the economy, whether in businesses, on farms, as entrepreneurs or employees, or through their unpaid work at home, where they care for their families.

Yet they also remain disproportionately affected by poverty, discrimination and exploitation. Gender-based discrimination often condemns women to precarious and poorly paid jobs and allows only a small minority of women to reach higher positions. It also restricts women's access to economic assets such as land and loans. It limits their participation in economic and social policy making.

And finally, because women do most of the household chores, they often have little time left to exploit new economic opportunities.

In Djibouti, the Ministry of Women and the Family is working to empower girls and women and integrate them into the socio-economic sphere. A multitude of strategies have been put in place to boost women's ability to create income-generating activities and accumulate assets.  The above-mentioned project aims to provide them with sufficient resources, better access to basic services and an improvement in all aspects of their living conditions in the long term.

This project, financed by the European Union and implemented by UNDP, UNICEF and UNFPA, has the overall objective of reducing gender disparity through support for the implementation of the national program of the Ministry of Women and the Family (MFF) on gender mainstreaming. It aims to improve the protection of women and girls and to consolidate the empowerment of Djiboutian women and girls and strengthen their resilience through a comprehensive approach that will mitigate the effects of unemployment.

 The beneficiaries are Djiboutian women and girls from precarious households, particularly those living in the 5 interior regions of the country (Ali Sabieh, Arta, Dikhil, Obock and Tadjourah) where the degree of inequality and vulnerability is particularly high.

The project consists of three key outputs to achieve the result. The first is a national literacy program, training and support for women's economic empowerment.

The project will rehabilitate, equip and establish nurseries; quality family planning services will be available and used by the beneficiaries.

In a speech delivered on the occasion of the launch of this project, the Minister of Women and the Family, Mrs. Moumina Houmed Hassan recalled that this project will lend a hand to the programs for the empowerment of women and girls that her department has been conducting in recent years in the capital and in the interior regions.

It will enable more women and girls, often excluded from the traditional financial system, to create income-generating activities to improve their daily lives and those of their families.

It will also help strengthen the capacities of women's solidarity cooperatives by financing local development projects, such as those you have just seen.

For his part, the Ambassador of the European Union in Djibouti Mr. Aidan O'Hara said that the development and empowerment of women is a permanent concern of the European Union. "In the coming years, we will implement many cross-cutting actions, targeted at improving their conditions in Djibouti. These actions will be directly inspired by the 3rd Action Plan "Gender" of the European Union which covers the period 2021-2025. This plan will be the reference for all European actions to achieve SDG No. 5 by 2030 to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. "According to the ambassador, this equality is a central value for the European Union as well as a universally recognized human right. Gender equality is also an inescapable factor that leads to progress, greater well-being, economic growth, shared prosperity, good governance, peace and security. All, in their diversity, must be able to choose their lives freely, prosper socially and economically, participate and take leadership without discrimination.

As for the UNDP Resident Representative in Djibouti, Ms. Fatima Elsheikh, she recalled that this project is in line with national priorities and the continuation of previous successful partnerships with the Ministry of Women and Family. For the UNDP Resident Representative, the issue of gender equality is the necessary condition to achieve sustainable development.

The empowerment of women is a human right, a moral and ethical duty for us, but not only. I strongly believe in the assets of women in this country. It is no coincidence that 24% of the deputies are women and that the Mayor of this city is also a woman.

We are particularly pleased to join our efforts with those of the Ministry of Women and Family, our sister agencies of the United Nations and the European Union to empower this fundamental part of the population which I am convinced will bring this country into a new phase of stability tolerance and prosperity" she concluded.

For the deputy representative of UNICEF, Ms. Alexandra Illmer, the particularity of this project is the involvement of adolescents and young people in changing behavior through innovative approaches, as well as strengthening the social movement against FGM with the collaboration of influential social actors and this with the theme of the year 2020 during the day of zero tolerance to FGM which was: "Investing in youth, a decade to accelerate efforts towards zero FGM by 2030".

Ms. Aicha Ibrahim representative of the UNFPA in Djibouti has, for its part, recalled the achievements in the promotion and protection of women's rights in the Republic of Djibouti which are based on the important work undertaken at the strategic and legislative level as the development of a family planning strategy, laws on violence against women and particularly FGM, a community development strategy, a decree establishing the creation of mutual development etc..

Among the priority actions of this project are: supporting the MFF in its advocacy with Parliament to include a budget line dedicated to the implementation of the national action plan for the total abandonment of FGM/C in the government budget, building the capacity of the staff of key partners of the Joint Program (Ministry of Health, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Education, the National Union of Djiboutian Women, the university, etc.). It also involves developing and integrating a module on FGM into the subject "Life and Earth Sciences" in primary, secondary and university education and conducting a Study on Social Norms and developing the first behavioral strategy on social norms aimed at endogenous change.