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The fault of our generation
Last week, I was invited to participate in a panel on Gender the Youth SDG Summit, UNITE2030. Totally up my street, I thought, as I scribbled my key messages: post 2030, its time for gender equality to be the norm… let’s broaden the narrow focus of gender in SDG 5 to include LGBTIAQ+… this, I can do in my sleep, I thought cockily. What else? Young people are incredible advocates and activists, but it is time to move from activism to influencing policy, so how about making that shift, being part of the democratic process and changing the system from within? Agitate to increase women’s representation in local bodies and…
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Afghanistan – since I had to…
I volunteered to work for the polio programme in Afghanistan in 2008, fresh from my first international assignment in Nigeria. It was only in 2010 that this materialised. I spent half a year with UNICEF working on eradicating polio, a job that came quite naturally to me since I wrote my book, but nothing had prepared me for the complexities that came with working in a country that had only known conflict. At the end of six months, I was weary and weatherbeaten. But Afghanistan was a drug that was hard to shake. So I returned. This time, I transitioned from polio (and public health) to regional integration and from…
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#NoCoverUp
Are we really surprised about the spate of domestic violence unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic? This brief by UNWOMEN has estimated that globally, 243 million women and girls between the ages of 15 and 49 have experienced sexual and/or physical violence perpetrated by an intimate partner in the previous 12 months. “This number is likely to increase as security, health, and money worries heighten tensions and strains are accentuated by cramped and confined living conditions.” What was that last sentence again? It almost sounded like a justification for domestic violence. As the world attempts a feeble recovery from the pandemic, economic uncertainty will continue for a long time. More people…