News

The African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP) in partnership with UNFPA and UN-WOMEN will host a high-level policy and action dialogue on the 27th of October 2022 under the theme ‘Harnessing the Gender Dividend in Accelerating Malawi Vision 2063 Achievement” at the Bingu International Convention Centre (BICC) from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm.

In recent years, Malawi has made strides in combating challenges in teen pregnancies, early marriages, school dropout, low progression to higher education, and relatively low participation of girls and women in skills development. There have been dialogues on tackling the challenges. Still, the national policy and action dialogue aim to renew stakeholders’ urgency and commitment to move beyond conversation into action.

The policy dialogue brings together a diversity of key stakeholders to take stock of progress and discuss persisting gaps in policy, investments and programming, and the needed solutions to address these gaps.

The policy dialogue objectives include:

1. Take stock of progress achieved to date in reducing teen pregnancies, early marriages, school dropouts, low progression to higher levels of education, and relatively low participation of girls and women in skills development and formal employment in Malawi.
2. Discuss evidence on persisting causes of gaps in the empowerment of girls and young women.
3. Discuss the required policy, investment and programme solutions for accelerating the achievement of the gender dividend in the country for input into various policy and strategy documents.

The programme will have presentations on progress made, policy, and programme gaps and highlights around comprehensive sexuality education in advancing the gender dividend for socio-economic development. The Ministry of Gender will also give an overview of the national strategy for ending child marriages which is under review.

AFIDEP is a non-profit regional research and policy Institute which works across Africa. The Institute’s work focuses on strengthening individual and institutional capacity for evidence use in public policy formulation and implementation to accelerate the achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other long-term development aspirations such as Malawi 2063. More details about the Institute are available at www.afidep.org.  AFIDEP’s headquartered in Malawi and is registered in Kenya and the USA as a non-profit organisation with 501c3 status.

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