Zineb Yahya Jammeh made this disclosure on Monday at the opening ceremony of the 3rd edition of Women’s Advancement Forum underway in Banjul.
The event brought together African women leaders, including two African first ladies for a three-day conference under the theme ‘challenges and achievements in the implementation of MDGs for women and girls’.
Lady Jammeh said: “Current assessments reveal that MDG targets, including health, hunger and access to basic amenities such as safe drinking water are likely to be met by 2015. The Gambia is also on track towards achieving MDG 3: to promote gender equality and empower women. It is important to note that The Gambia’s progress towards the attainment of the MDG goals is anchored on the fact that our government has given women their rightful share of position in the decision-making process; we prioritise girls’ education and our government continues to pay special attention to the needs of women and girls in the development agenda.
“It is obvious that there are many challenges hindering the progress to the attainment of the MDG for women and girls but the president uses his own resources in the empowerment of girls’ education project, that is to say, he pays tuition and other needs of school-going girls throughout the country.”
Also speaking, Mrs Olunfunso Amosun, the wife of the Nigeria’s Ogun State governor, described WAF as a platform that recognises the necessity of women’s empowerment for the actualisation of the MDGs.
Mrs Amosun who is also the chairwoman of WAF, added: “The set MDGs have been catalysts to global and national development efforts and their framework has helped to galvanise development efforts and guide global and national development priorities. As the 2015 deadline draws nearer and many targets remain to be met, the United Nations is shifting from what it once hailed as the MDGs to a more inclusive, participatory and sophisticated approach as the sustainable development goals which are to be finalised by the UN General Assembly this summer. This attempt to revise the previous ones by involving more global leaders at the table and align national priorities with international goals rather than impose international goals on countries with widely varying needs and resources. This forum should be spent pondering, planning strategising and attempting to review the MDGs’ successes so far and come up with a plan B on how to maximise, implement and actualise the next level.”
Meanwhile, the conference has given awards to the first ladies of Gambia, Senegal, and Burundi as well as the wives of governors of Nigerian states of River, Bauchi and Ogun. The Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh was also awarded.
By Sise Sawaneh
]]>
