GABORONE, July 15, 2025-The World Bank has released a comprehensive report, “Trends and Opportunities to Advance Gender Equality in Botswana“, analyzing gender dynamics across life-cycle stages to guide policymakers, the civil society, and development partners on key challenges and opportunities for advancing gender equality. It reveals how structural barriers in education access, financial inclusion, and…
Insights from the World Bank GROW Expo Despite women contributing nearly 40% of Africa’s GDP, they receive less than 7% of private equity and venture capital funding–and only a fraction of that reaches women-led SMEs. At the recent World Bank’s GROW Expo in Uganda, the Graça Machel Trust’s Afrishela Fund challenged this disparity with a…
As the G20 Technical Meetings continue in South Africa, a powerful voice is emerging from within the country’s leadership, calling for bolder and more targeted investments in women, youth, and persons with disabilities. Advocate Joyce Mikateko Maluleke, the Chairperson of the G20 Empowerment Women Working Group (EWWG) and Director-General of the Department of Women, Youth…
Gender-responsive policy is vital for climate resilience, but that requires actionable and better resourced plans. Women and girls make up 80% of people displaced by climate change, leaving them at risk of increased poverty, violence and exploitation. They are also much more likely than men to be injured or killed in natural disasters because gender…
Nairobi — The African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) has launched a new initiative aimed at strengthening gender-responsive policymaking across the continent’s agrifood systems. Dubbed the Gender in Agrifood Systems Policies (GASP) Program, the initiative seeks to build the capacity of 50 mid-career women policy professionals from eight African countries–Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Kenya,…
The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) held a three-day capacity-building workshop in Lilongwe, supported by the African Union (AU), COMESA, and International IDEA, aimed at strengthening electoral risk management and addressing gender-based violence in elections. This initiative comes as the country intensifies preparations for the 16 September 2025 General Election. Speaking at the official opening of…
A new report released by WomenLift Health lays bare a critical but often overlooked barrier to resilient health systems in Southern Africa: a persistent leadership gap for women in the public health sector, despite decades of progressive gender equality policies. Based on a comprehensive stakeholder analysis across ten countries including Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi,…
The southern African country of about three million people is not only the continent’s top performer, but also the only African nation to break into the top 10 worldwide, a milestone fuelled by its unprecedented leadership configuration. Namibia is Africa’s most gender-equal economy, closing 81.1% of its gender gap and ranking eighth globally in the…
Sub-Saharan Africa ranks sixth in terms of the global gender gap, with a current score of 68% according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). In its latest Global Gender Gap Report 2025, released this week, the WEF notes Sub-Saharan Africa displays wide variation across countries, but its success stories demonstrate that progress is possible in…
