Despite good progress, much more needs to be done to achieve Sustainable Development Goals 6.1: “By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all.”
Khartoum 22nd March 2017: Across the globe, March 22 every year is set aside to celebrate progress in water towards achieving global targets and to garner more political support. This year's theme: Why waste water? Is in support of SDG 6.3 on improving water quality and reducing, treating and reusing wastewater.
This week, a group of 850 refugees left Dadaab refugee camp for Somalia under the ongoing voluntary repatriation program.
Source: International Federation of Red Cross
The Uganda Red Cross Society and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) are scaling up emergency water treatment and latrine construction in northern Uganda as thousands of refugees fleeing violence and hunger in South Sudan stream into the country daily.
The UN refugee agency has criticised Cameroon for the forced return of hundreds of refugees to north-east Nigeria after they had fled from the Islamist Boko Haram insurgency.
Young women attending the 61st session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women met UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka at the Fearless Girl statue on Wall Street on 17 March.
Until recently, refugee education was planned with the singular purpose of preparing students to return to their countries of origin. Refugees hoped for and planned for a return home. Many still do.
It is eight o’clock in the morning. As punctual as ever, Jamila Ali Hassan, 30, opens the creaking door of the Dairy Retail Cooperative in the Melkadida refugee camp, ready to receive the farmers who beat a path to the door.
Jewel looks like a frightened bird who has finally found shelter from a storm as she steps on board the Aquarius. She shivers from cold and fear after having survived a dreadful nine-hour journey across the sea from Libya, in a small rubber boat crammed with over 100 people. Her clothes are still soaking wet when she bursts into tears in the arms of the MSF midwife who is welcoming women on board.
Source: The Herald
About 60 Zimbabwean women, who are victims of human trafficking, are stuck in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said.
Source: VOA
Malawian Airlines made history Thursday with an all-female operated and supported flight from Blantyre, Malawi, to Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania. The two-hour flight by a Bombardier Q400 aircraft that took off from Chileka International Airport was the first of its kind in Malawi's aviation history.
Source: IPS
A new UN initiative launched on Monday night calls the women's pay gap, which sees women paid 23 percent less than men globally: "the biggest robbery in history."
Source: cajnews
As the watershed votes approach in largely sexist Zimbabwe, women are wary of participating because of the violations that peak against females at election time. This is according to findings by a research thinktank ahead of polls set for 2018 when President Robert Mugabe is for the first time set to come up against a female candidate.
Source: African Arguments
Today as ever, African female activists are reshaping not just African feminist agendas but global ones as well.
Opening statement by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women for the 61st session of the Commission on the Status of Women
Women and children are being slaughtered in South Sudan by soldiers who said to be using knives for the massacres to save their ammunition.
The brutal conflict, sparking UN warnings over ethnic cleansing, is driving a devastating famine that is threatening millions with starvation in the country.
One woman who fled violence in the city of Yei told how she saw her best friend and her children, including three-month-old baby, butchered.
In Nigeria, Boko Haram is recruiting women and girls to carry out suicide bomb attacks. NGOs and the Nigerian government are working to rescue these women and reintroduce them to society and their families.
Women and girls, some reportedly aged ten and younger, have recently been used by Boko Haram to target checkpoints, bus stations, mosques, churches, schools and markets to inflict maximum civilian casualties.
When Sarah started menstruating in Egypt during the months-long journey that would take her from Eritrea to Britain, she had to use "toilet paper, tissue, anything" to soak up the blood.
She was preparing to make the journey across the Mediterranean from Egypt to Italy and did not have access to sanitary products.
"You're traveling with a small bag, an empty bag because when you go to the boat they ask you to make it lighter," Sarah told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in London, highlighting the added struggles women face in their perilous journeys to Europe.
With women being paid an average of 23 per cent less than men, the United Nations has launched a high-profile network to call for equal pay for work of equal value.
“We want equal pay now,” yelled Academy Award-winning American actress Patricia Arquette and two-time Olympic gold medalist and soccer superstar Abby Wambach, leading a call in the UN General Assembly Hall yesterday evening at the launch of the Equal Pay Platform of Champions.
A women's group in Luweero District has taken the campaign to boost hygiene and sanitation practices to another level. The group has not only encouraged members to improve sanitation and hygiene facilities in their home but have also spread good cheer to their different communities.
Source: UN Women
The UN Secretary-General Mr. Antonio Guterres joined Kenyans to celebrate the International Women’s Day during which he emphasized the need to protect women’s rights as human rights and empower women and girls.