My Dear  Sisters,

Today March 8, 2022, Africa joins the rest of the world to commemorate the International Women’s Day. 

 This celebration affords us an opportunity to highlight the lofty place women occupy in the universal conscience, their achievements in raising awareness in the world about the anachronisms against them, the execrable gender-bias and work resolutely together to achieve gender equality.

The theme for this year “Gender Equality Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow”, encourages a vivid and relevant conversation on the necessary social, economic, cultural and political reforms for establishing an Africa where men and women have equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities.

The efforts of the African Union Commission (AUC) to advance women agenda in the Continent include providing a strategic direction for such agendas.

In this regard the AUC commemorates this Day in the prospect of “Innovative Solutions for Financial and Economic Inclusion for African Women”, in line with the decision of the AU Policy Organ, adopted in February 2020, to dedicate 2020-2030 as “the Decade of African Women for Financial and Economic Inclusion”.

Financial and Economic inclusion for African Women demands our collective focus and actions on critical issues such as access to financial resources and services, scaling up the capacities in a dynamic global environment, access to land ownership, property and other productive assets, as well as skills and market information.

To meet these conditions, the AUC established, in 2020, the Trust Fund for African Women (TFAW) as the main tool for implementing the Decade for Financial and Economic Inclusion. This Trust Fund replaces the Fund for African Women (FAW), established in 2010, to mobilise financial resources to support projects executed by women grassroots organisations.

Consequently, I urge African decision and policy makers and all stakeholders to prioritise the elaboration of inclusive strategies, policies and regulatory frameworks seeking to accelerate the financial inclusion of African women and girls while enhancing their creative and transformative economic participation.

To give concrete form to this initiative, I encourage the women to commit themselves with all the courage and all the lucidity, which are recognised in them, to take ownership, by bold and conquering initiatives, the process of their emancipation and their actual autonomy.

Dear Sisters,

There is no doubt that the combined effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and Climate change are mainly unfavorable to women. Finding the necessary resources and working to mitigate these negative impacts in the daily life of every woman in any household, of which she is the pillar, remains one of the priorities of the African Union Commission.

On this International Women's Day, I would like to salute the resilience of our African sisters, wives and girls for the formidable role they continue to play as the foundations of our societies.

I dare hope that, on this Special Day, the exchange of views, the conversation and other forms of discussion during this celebration will lead to concrete actions for an environment conducive to the emergence of equality and the emulation of rights and opportunities for women.

I wish, while having a deep thought for the women who strive with us, at all levels of our Union, an excellent and productive African Women's Day.