|
The African Women Millennium Initiative on Poverty and Human Rights (AWOMI), based in Dakar, Senegal, was launched in May 2005 with financial support from the Global Fund for Women, the Flora Family Foundation and the Wallace Family Foundation. AWOMI was set up to fill an important gap in enabling poor women to access and benefit from economic opportunities and wealth they contribute in creating, whilst monitoring that resources earmarked to fight poverty get in the hands of those who need them most.
During AWOMI’s launch which took place in Limuru, Kenya, over three hundred women and a number of men coming mainly from communities living in poverty came together to celebrate this great initiative and share lessons and skills on how to strengthen African women’s participation in policy analysis, monitoring and evaluating development benchmarks in the context of the MDGs. They revisited gender equality indicators in the MDGs in line with what was agreed in the Beijing Platform for Action in 1995, the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994 and prescriptions established in the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Women set up national networks for monitoring funding for poverty elimination and committed themselves to do their best to promote achievement of the MDGs.
Following its launch AWOMI was able to realize several programmatic outcomes with the steadfast support of several foundations. AWOMI utilizes a three-pronged strategy of research, advocacy and social mobilization to address key issues affecting impoverished women and youth. AWOMI was able to undertake evidence-based research, promote and enhance the networking and mobilization of different stakeholders of women, and carry out advocacy activities through policy dialogue. AWOMI’s research, advocacy and social mobilization strategies are the backbone of the activities linking local realities to demands for policy change and democratic development. AWOMI works with women partners to identify the bottlenecks that are preventing them from being more active in national policy monitoring and policy change. By working at the local level and facing their issues and challenges, communities of women and girls are empowered to understand with capacity building and advocacy from AWOMI, that national policy analysis and demanding accountability are issues they must engage in.
|
