THE STATE OF AFRICAN WOMEN

THE STATE OF AFRICAN WOMEN REPORT AND THE RIGHT BY HER CAMPAIGN

This State of African Women report is published in the State of African Women Campaign (SOAWC) project, whose overall
objective is to contribute to securing, realising and extending women’s rights enshrined in African Union (AU) policies in
African countries. The project is being implemented by a consortium of eight organisations, under the lead of the International
Planned Parenthood Federation Africa Region (IPPF AR).1 The SOAWC project has two intermediate objectives. The first is
to influence legal and social norms on women’s rights through greater transparency and public pressure on duty-bearers. The
second is to hold decision-makers to account for their policy commitments on women’s and girls’ rights through a stronger
civil society voice and meaningful participation in decision-making.
At the heart of the SOAWC project is the Right By Her campaign, which focuses on increasing civil society’s contribution to
implementation of the African commitments on women and girls’ rights in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).
The Right By Her campaign focuses in particular on implementation of the AU’s Maputo Protocol (the Protocol to the African
Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa) and the Maputo Plan of Action (MPoA), which is the
implementation framework for the Continental Policy Framework on SRHR. The campaign seeks to strengthen implementation of
the Maputo Protocol and the MPoA at four decision-making levels across Africa: continental, regional, national and subnational.
It does so by strengthening civil society organisations (CSOs) in two aspects: in terms of knowledge on women and girls’ rights
in SRHR and in terms of advocacy strategies and capacity to meaningfully participate in decision-making processes. As such, the
SOAWC project aims to enhance CSOs’ potential to have a long-lasting and far-reaching impact.

Read ‘THE STATE OF AFRICAN WOMEN’

Corporate Author: IPPFAR, IPPFEN, OAFLA,  DSW, KIT, F2A, YWCA

Publication Year: 2018

To be published on country nodes: Burundi

Theme: Access to SRHR Services

URL: http://www.ippfar.org/sites/ippfar/files/2018-09/SOAW-Report-FULL%20VERSION.pdf