COVID 19 has exposed great inequalities within our societies and has alleviated the unique burdens that women bring around the world.
Both women are strong advocates for women’s problems, and governments and the personal sector are implementing policies not only to address the inequalities experienced through COVID-19 women, but it is appealing to note that women concluded their paintings independently thinking that if they strategically manage responses to these critical disorders, women can leave that period which made significant progress.
The founder of the Graca Machel Trust and the Foundation for Community Development and one of the world’s leading advocates for women’s and children’s rights, Graca Machel Trust recently wrote an open letter urging governments, progress agencies and the sector to take ambitious steps to mitigate and lead meaningful reconstruction efforts. Machel, President Nelson Mandela’s widow, said, “We have had the opportunity to reinvent and redefine our society in a dynamic and equitable society. “
Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill Foundation
Teresa Clarke: Ms. Machel, can you tell us what encouraged you to write your open letter about the effect of COVID-19 on African women, “bold movements to mitigate and lead meaningful reconstruction efforts”?
Ms. Machel: When the COVID crisis erupted, I learned that the public aptitude measures being put in place were blind to the exclusive wishes of women, adolescents, women and the poor, especially in rural areas, so I think of the most productive way to perceive this would be to pay attention to the voices of women themselves , so my task convened 4 Pan-African webinars and twelve live conversations on Instagram in which the goal is to give women a space to express their challenges, their frustrations, but also their aspirations in those times of crisis.
I can only say that I did not write this letter alone; I asked Ngozi Yowala, Dr. Vera Songwe and Maria Ramos, as monetary experts, to contribute to their thinking, to mix the joy of the women we had consulted with wisdom and wisdom. Experiment and delight in others at the highest point of public institutions. So we learned that closures had an effect on everyone’s livelihoods, but especially women. Our economies in Africa are commonly coincidental and that’s where the top women are.
In the formal economy, women are incorporated into very small or medium-sized enterprises, they also saw the shocks of the pandemic, some closed, others suffered to survive, so it was transparent to me that the effect of COVID was disproportionate. very heavy for women So, there’s nothing more logical to say, if you have to have a proper reaction to that and if you need some kind of proper review, I mean reconstruction, you have to take that in half and pay attention to their voices and aspirations.
In addition, women’s leadership has been shown to mean “one that changes,” I mean gambling regulations. Women unite minds and hearts, and because of this, we have even recently learned that women-led countries have responded much more to the COVID crisis than men-led countries, so nothing is clearer and shows that the more demanding situations we face, the more time it is to take women to the forefront and have leadership , female leadership, to lead. inspiration for us to write this letter and make that call.
Teresa Clarke: Mrs. Machel, in your letter you made seven express recommendations, could you share with us what would be the vital maxim of these recommendations?
Mrs Machel: I have to say that the seven recommendations are an integral component of the same vision and approach, not necessarily to say that some are more than others, but to save time I will mention the 3 that, in my opinion, are fundamental.
All responses will have to take into account a gender attitude and be informed through the voice of women, if it fails, some of the world’s population has not been restructured and we will fail.
We also advise that governments and models of progression put gender-sensitive economic policies into force and assist women’s ability in their engineering capacity to contribute to our economic growth.
And we also propose to go beyond undeniable answers, we have to keep in mind that we do have enough data on how this affects women, we want gender-sensitive knowledge that reflects the truth in the field.
In particular, we have raised the factor of food security and nutrition. There is no right that can be put into force without food, so women, being basically food manufacturers in Africa, will have to be specifically supported to acquire responsiveness. their families and also for their nations and for the continent.
All other recommendations are equally important, but they are all components of the same package.
Teresa Clarke: Melinda, we’re coming to you. Let me ask Mrs Machel the same questions I asked Mrs Machel, which prompted her to write her article on this subject and share with us not only her inspiration, but also what the two or three maximum vital recommendations she has made in the same area would be.
Melinda: He encouraged me to write this article because we are all living this COVID pandemic around the world and it is wreaking havoc not only on our bodies and our physical state, but also exposes the defects of society that have existed for so long. And like Mrs Machel, I hear about the effect on women, and where we have data, I see that they have an effect on women. That is why, in this document I wrote for Foreign Affairs, I highlighted 4 key areas: which largely reflects what Ms. Machel and the others say. First we want to take a look at women’s fitness.
Going back to the time of the Ebola crisis in the 4 affected countries, there is a phantom pandemic that coincided with Ebola and had to do with maternal mortality and child-juvenile deaths, we are already seeing this in the fitness systems of the countries most affected through COVID-19.
Number two: we want to take a look at the economy of how we are helping women rebuild and rebuild better. They are excluded from the labor force if it is the formal economy and if it is the informal economy; they paint in so many rooms of the house, hunt to bring food to the table, after the elderly at home, after the children. So we want to see how we put women at the center, across the African continent and in everyone else. countries, to help women recover financially.
Third, knowledge. Without knowledge, we cannot make sound political decisions. Some countries that already have some of this knowledge are very wise about how they do, for example, government money bills directly to a woman’s account, because they know that what a woman’s account is going to be spent on the family. So knowledge is my third, and then the fourth is women’s leadership.
And when I talk about leadership, I mean from the base to a higher point, women have a vision of society that is just another, honestly, another of the top men, not all men, but when we join those foundations, women or men organizations that look at women’s problems with top leaders and they sit at the table , begin to replace and create other policies that gain benefits for women and families.
And so, those four key areas: women’s health, economy, knowledge and leadership are the four I highlight in this particular article.
Teresa Clarke: Let me ask you a question. When you take a look at Africa, can you point to the specific government or personal sector actors you see taking express action to combat gender equality in their early responses to the pandemic?
Melinda: Absolutely, the Ethiopian government, for example, without delay saw that women would be more afraid to enter the fitness system, without delay distributing those birth kits at home so that if you had to stay in your domain to give birth, and I couldn’t do it or I didn’t need to come to the fitness post to see a delivery company , would have a clean and affordable delivery kit to help cut the cord. Arrange to keep the woman safe, keep the domain clean; can make a big difference.
In Kenya, the government’s economic survey in particular questions about women. We found that some of the cellular knowledge they provide is much less expensive and even loose because we know there is a big hole. There is a hole not only in the phone property, but the biggest problem is that women have access to the internet. It’s another wonderful policy.
The last one I’m going to go to highgentle is in Ghana. They make sure to eliminate application fees for women-led companies. So if you have a small vegetable stand and you stay peaceful at night, they’re throwing away those charges. I think it makes a big difference for women-led corporations in this period.
Teresa Clarke: Ms. Machel, we have a consultation of Othrough Ezekwesili, Senior Economic Adviser, African Economic Development Policy Initiative, who is the co-founder of #BringBackOurGirls; the effort that drew attention to the three hundred Nigerian women abducted through Boko Haram. Lately #ChicksPolitics, to expand a public leadership initiative in Africa to prepare women for elected positions.
Oby: What an emotion to have those two glorious women on the panel. Women at the forefront of politics and public leadership are still very weak on our continent. It’s about 23%. So how can we temporarily do the kind of things here and intensify the kind of things you and Melinda communicate and do about, so that we can deliberately and deftly begin to mobilize critical resources that are association, wisdom, and investment to increase the number of women whose barriers to access to politics and public leadership have been removed , so we have bigger sources?
Ms. Machel: Experience tells us that women who have the drive and ability to fend for themselves in public areas, especially at the top, seek to do so with efforts that allow them to be supported here and there. unusual and agreed strategy among African women, to take this fight together and feel that it is up to us to create the area and methods through which we will reach those positions, so, to be very specific, I recommend that you know, and I have not spoken to my older sister, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who has created a center that promotes precisely this kind of leadership for African women.
My suggestion would be, Oby and anyone interested in this, to call us Ellen, to come down and bring to the table the women who have held high-level policy positions, those who are, the ones who aspire and any other interested parties. So that we can write the smartest strategy we can come together with, whether you’re in Senegal, Morocco or Malawi, so we have a non-unusual tool through which we can outline what the first step is and when and who we are. We are working together to achieve a visual and meaningful transformation of the African political landscape.
But take a look at doing this through one according to your own resources, this device is very, very heavy and is very resistant to change. Only an organized movement can break it down step by step and open the obligatory paths. That’s it. This is what we’re looking for. So, I think it would be very much for me to check to give an express strategy on how to do it. I say that we create a space, that we create a strategy and that we have a tool around which we all come together and that we paint to convince men and women that yes, women are the ones we expected to design the table themselves. Not only are they called to sign up for the table, no, we have to redesign the table in combination to make sure we take care of what the transformation will be.
Teresa Clarke: Thank you very much for this response which, in my opinion, is perfect. Now we have a consultation for Melinda Gates. Konyin is the managing wife of Oluwa Nanjai, a law firm. Nigerian real estate law specialist, Konin, please can make your consultation with Melinda.
Konyin: Thank you very much for this opportunity and thank you for the paintings you make. A little question. In recent research published in Lancet Global Health, he warned that relief at maternal fitness facilities of between 9. 8 and 18% can result in up to 12,200 additional maternal deaths in six months in low- and middle-income countries. A brief question, based on this report, is what is the behind-the-scenes dynamic that can lead to minimization in the use of fitness facilities, and are there interventions or behavioral resources that can be implemented to ensure that women and young people enjoy a fundamental physical condition?Be careful what you want right now? And the last point is, from what you said in your opening about the length with which women refract things, how can we make society see the durations used through women?
Melinda: Thanks for your question. You know, when it comes to maternal health and child health, a crisis like this, the shadow pandemic that we are already seeing with COVID-19. Some of the things we can do; what I see in some of the more advanced little fitness features is that they are breaking down, which is what we see all over the world. You are looking to separate your COVIC-19 patients from your maternity ward, or you have another door that women enter. And where it could have had motherhood in one aspect and facilities for children in the other, it is looking to put them all in one place. Asking women to come in on Monday for one service and Tuesday for another service and Thursday for childhood vaccinations, that no longer works. So we have to think about making plans and leaving where you can, or, if women are afraid to enter, how do you get where they are? How do you send fitness professionals on, put on the right PPE and understand, from house to house, who has a desire to give birth, etc. ?
The other thing I’d say is the family planning circle. During the Ebola epidemic, there has been a massive increase in teenage pregnancies and unplanned births. I was literally just before that, a video call with a young woman in Kenya, who was serving youth teams in Kenya; surely they see that teenage pregnancies are already on the rise due to COVID-19. Therefore, in advising teenage women on their bodies in Niger, the “women’s teams” learned that they had to replace their schedules so that fewer women would meet in Meet at other times of the day, well spaced, but are further informed about their bodies, they are further informed about the spacing of births , birth planning. We know from Ebola that women who stayed in a group of women at the time of Ebola, the rates of pregnancy in adolescence were actually lower than those of women who did not.
And finally, I would say, as I went through this COVID epidemic, making sure deep down, welcoming women to school. We are giving up tuition fees, which happened in Ghana, they eliminated tuition and trial fees for two years, causing young teens to return and regain consciousness and out of poverty.
Teresa Clarke: We would like to implore the governments of Africa and around the world to pay attention to their sensible recommendations because they are universally relevant. We look forward to motivating everyone in this call today, holding our leaders accountable, and playing the role they can play in leveraging this moment to achieve replacement. It can be an inspiration to what we need to do for women around the world. And we can all ask to be part of the motion to achieve replacement for women in Africa.
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