The African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) is a membership-based pan-African Network which began their work 1988 in efforts to advance African women's development, equality and other human rights.

FEMNET plays a central role in sharing information, experiences, ideas and strategies among African women's NGOs in effort to strengthen women's capacity to participate effectively in the development processes on the continent.

FEMNET seeks to facilitate and coordinate the sharing of experiences, ideas, information, and strategies for human rights promotion among African women through networking, communication, capacity-building and advocacy at the regional and international levels. They aim to ensure African women’s voices are amplified and can influence decisions, at all levels, which affect their lives.

Femnet team members

So how do they make African women count?

As a membership based organization with members in over 40 countries in Africa, FEMNET has over the years played a central role in sharing information, experiences, ideas and strategies among African women's NGOs in order to strengthen women's capacity to participate effectively in the development processes on the continent.

FEMNET has played a lead role in building the women's movement in Africa and has aimed to ensure that African women voices are amplified and influence decisions made at national, regional and global levels, which have direct and indirect impact on their lives.

Main Successes:

2013 marks their 25 years of existence; 25 years of mobilizing African women and effecting change! Congratulations FEMNET!

FEMNET is also a founding member of SOAWR (Solidarity for African Women's Rights) which works to promote and ensure the ratification, implementation and domestication of one of the most progressive policies to date with regard to women's rights - the Maputo Protocol, which has now been ratified by 36 African countries.

Further, they have mobilized women to participate around key processes, including the AU Summits, the CSWs, Post-2015 processes, Beijing and Beijing review in addition to others. They also take pride in having engaged with both female presidents on the continent - both of whom which are featured in the organizations latest documentary, WOMEN RISING: Political Leadership in Africa .

Another key focus of the organization is to raise awareness and rally support for key women’s rights issues. For example, FEMNET recently led a petition, Justice For Liz, Liz who is a 16 year old girl who was beaten, gang-raped and dumped in a latrine. They were successful in obtaining over a million signatures and gained worldwide attention through their campaign.

Key Challenges:

FEMNET describes their main challenges as challenges which, “have to do with limited human capacity to carry out the mammoth task ahead of us.” Describing themselves ass one of few Pan-African women's rights organizations, the organization feels they has a lot of ground to cover, and currently depend on donors to sustain their work.

 

Images from the ceremonies around Kilimanjaro - Africa UNiTE campaign.

If you’d like to learn more about FEMNET or engage with them, check them out through these various outlets:

Twitter - @femnetprog
Facebook - FEMNET Secretariat
Blog - http://femnet.wordpress.com
Youtube - FEMNET1
Website - www.femnet.com