Global Gender Summit 2019 to focus on achieving gender equality, women’s empowerment

Global Gender Summit 2019 is slated to take place at the Kigali Convention Centre in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali between November 25 and 27. The East African country is preparing the ground the welcome women from across the globe to attend the first Global Gender Summit to be held in the African continent.

The African Development Bank is going to organize the next Global Gender Summit 2019 in association with the Republic of Rwanda. “We believe that Global Gender Summit 2019 will be an opportunity to share best practices from all participants so that we accelerate progress on gender equality and women’s empowerment in Africa and around the world,” said Rwanda’s Minister of Gender and Family Promotion, Soline Nyirahabimana.

The Global Gender Summit themed ‘Unpacking constraints to gender equality’ will be organized by the African Development Bank with other multilateral development bank partners. The biennial event brings together leaders from the government, development institutions, private sector, civil society and academia.

“We are excited to be bringing the world to Africa on the issue of gender equality. We have chosen Rwanda because the country is an example when it comes to empowering its women, well beyond Africa’s borders,” the African Development Bank’s Director of Gender, Women and Civil Society, Vanessa Moungar said.

Rwanda has been selected, according to Vanessa Moungar, as the host country for this event based on their commitment to improving the livelihoods of women, citing the 2013 implementation of gender-sensitive laws, which helped to dramatically increase women’s access to finance in Rwanda from 36 percent to 63 percent by 2016.

The Global Gender Summit 2019 will focus on three key dimensions to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment: scaling up innovative financing; fostering an enabling environment, and ensuring women’s participation.