East African Community Headquarters, Arusha (Tanzania), 6th March, 2020: Each year on the 8th of March, the World celebrates International Women’s Day. It is an opportunity for the East African Community (EAC) Secretariat and its partners to join the rest of the World in taking stock of women’s achievements throughout history and across nations.
This years’ International Women’s day, themed “I am Generation Equality: Women’s Rights”, with #EachforEqual, IWD 2020 as the Campaign Hashtag was celebrated at the EAC Secretariat with over 200 participants in attendance from across the EAC on the 6th March 2020. The celebration reflected on progress made on women’s rights and promotion of generation equality in the EAC region and across the world.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 28th November, 2019: After a one-year-long work of platform construction and information upload, the new continental women's platform was launched on November 26, during the Global Gender Summit in Kigali, Rwanda.
The platform is intended to connect 50 million African women in business across 38 African countries.
The portal (www.womenconnect.org) and mobile application (50MAWSP) come to solve the information issue that African women in business face when it comes to accessing available information on financial and non-financial services.
Highlighting 40 projects from across the East African Community focusing on the benefits of regional integration
Showcasing real-life applications and initiatives from civil society and the private sector that target women and youth and encourage innovation and collaboration
Projects focusing on health, performing arts, youth unemployment, tourism, ICT, cross border trade and much more
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 14th November, 2019: The Civil society and private sector organisations from across the EAC region came together in Arusha, Tanzania to celebrate Incubator for Integration and Development in East Africa (IIDEA) Week, an initiative of the EAC Secretariat in partnership with the Regional Dialogue Committee and with the support of German Development Cooperation through the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
The 11th -14th September, 2019 IIDEA brought together representatives from the IIDEA Committee, EAC Secretariat, development partners, and other stakeholders, to present their projects and discuss the benefits and challenges and participate in training and evaluation sessions for capacity enhancement.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 7th October, 2019: The East African Community Youth Ambassadors will undertake a multi-stakeholder outreach programme targeting the border districts/communities at Horohoro (Tanzania) and Lunga Lunga (Kenya).The sensitization programme will take place from 9th - 10th October 2019.
The major goal of the programme is to sensitize the youth within the border communities, local leaders and actors as well as border agencies on issues hindering regular cross border movements and threats linked to irregular movements such as smuggling or trafficking.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 4th October, 2019: The EAC convened a 5-day content harmonisation workshop for the three regional economic blocs implementing the 50 Million African Women Speak (50MAWS) project, EAC, EACOWAS and COMESA. The workshop, hosted in Moshi, Tanzania, was convened in preparation for the launch of the 50MAWS Networking Platform planned for November 2019.
Officiating the workshop, EAC Deputy Secretary General in charge of Productive and Social Sectors, Hon. Christophe Bazivamo commended the collaboration between EAC, ECOWAS, and COMESA, and the commitment bby each party in pushing the agenda of women economic empowerment in the continent.
…..Promoting the financial inclusion alongside the 50 Million African Women Speak Networking Platform Project (50MAWSP) is a social responsibility for East African Media outlets.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, 24th June 2019: The East African Community Secretariat under 50 Million African Women Speak Project (50MAWSP) has been engaging different Media houses in the Republics of Rwanda and Burundi in an effort to gain the media’s support as key Project stakeholders.
The 18th to 21st June 2019 discussions focused on how best to ensure effective media coverage during the 50MAWS platform launch and as well as awareness raising campaign after the launch.The 50MAWS platform, which has been under construction for the last eight months, is expected to be launched by December 2019. The technical development of the platform has been finalized and the Partner States have embarked on populating the platform with information.
East African Community Secretariat, Arusha, Tanzania, 30th March 2019: The 50 Million Speak Project (50MWS) conducted a user training on the Digital Platform from the 25th to 29th March 2019, in Lusaka-Zambia, aimed at providing women with access to information on financial and non-financial services while creating a community of women who will act as peers, advisors and mentors to each other.
The training was organized by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), which is the Coordinating Regional Community in the implementation of the 50MWS Project.
The objective of the training was to equip the users with the required skills in managing the Platform ahead of the official launch planned in a few months.
East African Community Secretariat, 22nd March, 2019:The 50 Million African Women Speak Networking Platform Project (50MWS) is working with different stakeholders to help solve the various issues that women in business face, including access to finance.
On the 21st March 2019, a 4-member delegation from the East African Community Secretariat together with two Officers from the Tanzanian Ministries in charge of East African Affairs and the Ministry responsible for Gender paid a visit to women empowerment organisations in Dar es Salaam.
The objective of this field visit was for the project to understand better how these organisations operate so as to enable the 50MWS Project forge partnerships around the women economic empowerment agenda.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, 8th March, 2019: The East African Community has joined the rest of the world in marking the 2019 International Women's Day under the theme, Think Equal, Build Smart, Innovate for Change. The 8th March 2019 event was held at the EAC Headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania.
As provided for in Articles 121 and 122 of the Treaty for the Establishment of the EAC, Partner States have undertaken various efforts to enhance the Role of Women in Business and Socio-Economic Development.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, 13th December, 2018: A first consultative meeting with financial institutions in the Republic of Uganda on the implementation of the 50 Million African Women Speak Networking Platform (50MWS) Project was held on 11th December, 2018 in Kampala, Uganda.
The objective of the meeting was to introduce the project to the financial institutions and to solicit their support as key stakeholders in the implementation of the project.
EAC Director of Social Sectors, Mary Makoffu, reiterated the critical role of financial institutions in the implementation and success of the project.
