AfricaPress-Tanzania: KOREA International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in Tanzania has signed agreements with United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to support a USD 5 million joint Programme, for young women empowerment.
Titled ‘Realising Gender Equality through Empowering Women and Adolescent Girls’, the programme is for empowering women and adolescent girls in Singida and Shinyanga regions, especially at this time when the global community is battling the COVID-19 pandemic,” said the KOICA Country Director, Mr Kyucheol Eo.
“The coronavirus pandemic, which has now reached Tanzania, will change the lives of many people in the country, while its impacts – both short- and long-term – may be felt most disproportionately by women and adolescent girls, with existing gender-based inequalities exacerbated by the outbreak,” he said.
He asserted that through the Joint Programme, KOICA will support efforts to address the crucially intertwined socioeconomic challenges facing women and adolescent girls in rural Tanzania, which include barriers to economic empowerment and social norms and values that perpetuate Gender Based Violence (GBV) and harmful practices, he said.
During the signing ceremony on Wednesday in Dar es Salaam, UN Women Representative, Ms Hodan Addou, said that starting in April 2020 through March 2023, UNFPA and UN Women will work together to strengthen the social and economic resilience of some of the furthest behind rural women and adolescent girls in Ikungi and Msalala districts of Singida and Shinyanga regions, respectively.
According to her, UN Women will focus on economically empowering women and female youth farmers by improving agricultural production, collective marketing and entrepreneurship skills; and enhancing land tenure security, addressing both the short- and long-term economic shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Although women are crucial, food producers and contributors to livelihoods, they face challenges in maximising their production and marketing potentials.
This is exacerbated by the gendered norms and practices experienced not only in some communities in Tanzania but also in other African countries,” she said, adding:
The Programme will strengthen women farmers’ capacity in agriculture and collective marketing.
It will also address land planning and ownership; and household decision-making in collaboration with both men and women in the community at a time when collective efforts are so critical to ensure women are safe and economically resilient in the face of COVID-19.
UNFPA Representative, Ms Jacqueline Mahon, commented that while it is too early to say what the long-lasting impacts of COVID-19 will be, there is a danger that advances in gender equality could stall or even reverse.
The Joint Programme will seek to build on progress towards realising national and global commitments to advance gender equality, particularly to end all GBV and harmful practices against women and girls by 2030.
