“Turning the Tide on Women’s Inequality: Transforming Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Economic Solutions for All”

Turning the Tide on Women's Inequality A High-Level Online Meeting

Within the framework of KAICIID’s Women Voices Series and with a lens on multi-faith collaborations, the High-Level Online Meeting seeks to identify and recommend clear steps to redress dynamics that hinder the progress on women's empowerment. It is in follow-up to the webinar held on April 17 2024.
Duration: 120 minutes

This High-Level Online Meeting (HLOM) “Turning the Tide on Women’s Inequality: Transforming Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Economic Solutions for All” seeks to identify clear steps towards redressing dynamics that hinder progress on women’s empowerment, mobilise the necessary resources to implement Agenda 2030 and the priorities of the 68th annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68), and to drive global change by championing women's rights and roles.

The HLOM will dive deep into the conclusions of CSW68, focusing on impactful practices in which faith communities play a crucial role in addressing women’s inequality and climate justice. By sharing experiences and insights from various challenging contexts, the meeting will highlight how religious actors and local partners, especially women and girls, act as catalysts for positive change. It will build upon the outcomes of a webinar held on 17 April 2024, which investigated grassroots actions to redress dynamics that hinder progress on women’s empowerment and showcased a comprehensive approach to empowering women and engaging religious leadership in climate action and gender equality. The webinar highlighted the need to address structural challenges, reinterpret religious teachings, and promote sustainable solutions and collaborative frameworks to ensure women’s meaningful participation in resource allocation and decision-making. Thus, the HLOM will emphasise inclusive platforms for collaboration such as training on climate issues, financial literacy, accurate disaster reporting, and involving more female religious leaders in decision-making and capacity-building programmes.

The HLOM aims to produce a dynamic report with concrete messages and recommendations, incorporating an interreligious perspective for a holistic societal approach. This report will call for actionable plans that harness the collective power of faith communities to combat the disproportionate impacts of poverty, hunger, and climate change on women and girls. It will also advocate for effective partnerships in climate action, urging policymakers to recognise and support the critical contributions of women, religious actors, and local partners in climate mitigation, adaptation and response.

Format & Methodology:

The HLOM is held in a workshop format, which features full audience participation through interaction with panellists and in thematic breakout groups. The format allows for online collaboration in identifying specific needs, actionable recommendations and innovative solutions on how to turn the tide against women’s inequality through sustainable economic empowerment. These contributions will inform the messages and recommendations in the HLOM outcome report.

Guiding Themes and Breakout Groups:

Capacity Building and Leadership Development

How can we equip religious leaders, especially women, with the necessary skills to champion women's economic empowerment and decision-making within their communities?

Collaborative Advocacy and Policy Reform

How can we advocate for policies that enhance women's access to finance and resources through collaborative efforts and policy reform?

Interfaith Dialogue and Inclusive Platforms

How can we foster collaboration among diverse stakeholders to advance women's empowerment and financial inclusion through inclusive platforms and dialogue?

Sustainable Economic Opportunities and Environmental Justice

Which innovative solutions can we propose to promote sustainable economic opportunities for women while addressing structural barriers and aligning with environmental justice principles?

This HLOM is organised by KAICIID in collaboration with the International Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development (PaRD) and its Gender Equality and Empowerment Workstream, and co-Sponsored by the Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affairs, Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UNITED SIKHS UK, World Vision International, Arigatou International and the African Union Citizens and Diaspora Directorate (CIDO).

SPEAKERS

Shamsa Abubakar Fadhil

Ms. Shamsa Abubakar Fadhil, known as “Mama Shamsa”, is a renowned Kenyan mediator, peacebuilder, and community mobilizer. Committed to promoting cohesion, integration, and acceptance of diversity among women regardless of tribe, religion, status, or political affiliation, she has been honored with the 2024 Global Peace Award by the Pop movement and the World Sustainable Development Forum for her humanitarian leadership and social justice efforts. She also received the 2024 Cardinal Onaiyekan Foundation award for her peacebuilding service, and was recognized as a 2024 Buddhist female warrior for her work in compassion and human fraternity. Additionally, Shamsa was honored by the Muslim Council of Elders at the COP 28 Conference for her climate justice efforts and received the 2023 ZAYED Award for Human Fraternity for her work in steering youth away from violence, crime, and extremism.

As Chair of the Mombasa Women of Faith Network and a board representative of the African Women of Faith Network, Shamsa leads initiatives to foster interfaith relations and tackle community challenges such as early marriages, SGBV cases, and violent extremism. In 2014, she founded the grassroots organization 'Focus on Women and Youth in Coast Province for Political Development'. Her efforts led to her becoming the first woman to chair the Nyali Sub-county District Peace and Security Committee. Observing widespread juvenile gang activity in Mombasa, she launched a campaign to reform youth, resulting in a collaborative effort that offered amnesty, counseling, entrepreneurship training, and technical skills development. Recently, she was appointed to the Global Freedom Network Federation for Faith for Freedom Kenya, recognizing her ongoing dedication and impact.

Monica Ferro

Monica has been the Director of UNFPA’s London office since August 2023. She previously served for six years as the Chief of UNFPA's Representation Office in Geneva. Prior to joining UNFPA, Monica had a twenty-year career of public service in Portugal, during which time she served as the Secretary of State for National Defence, as well as stints as a university lecturer, a media personality and an activist. Monica served as a Member of Parliament, the Chair of the All-Parliamentary Group on Population and Development, and Vice-President of the European Forum of Parliamentarians for Population and Development. She has authored more than 100 articles, books and encyclopaedia references on issues related to the UN, Human Rights, State Building and Security Sector Reform.

Joyce A. Mdachi

Ms. Mdachi is the country Coordinator of Global Network of Religions for Children- GNRC -Tanzania and the Director of the GRCF Tanzania. She has more than 20 years of experience in working with children, including the most vulnerable children at Dogodogo Centre as head of its education department. She has spent the last 16 years working for GNRC empowering young ones on their rights and promoting ethics education to create safe environments where children can thrive and realize their potential.

Ms. Mdachi is a certified teacher, trained in children’s rights, as well as a skilled facilitator (Transformative Pedagogy for Learning to Live Together) and counsellor. She is knowledgeable on issues relating to gender, good governance, climate change, and peacebuilding. Ms. Mdachi has attended summer school at Oslo University, Norway, as well as several local and international conferences and forums in Tanzania, Panama, the United States of America, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Kenya, on child and youth rights. She is well exposed to diverse cultures and faith backgrounds.

Ms. Mdachi has successfully empowered over 50,000 children to become responsible young people who appreciate diversity. She has led and collaborated with other partners in Tanzania (including faith leaders) in advocacy to end violence against children, including early child marriage, the killings of people (children) with albinism.

MODERATOR(S)

Jennifer McCarthy

Jennifer McCarthy joined the PaRD Secretariat at GIZ in March 2022. She is originally from Canada but has lived, worked and studied abroad since 2003, and has 12 years of development practice experience. She has worked with NGOs in Afghanistan, Indonesia, and Myanmar, as well as in the UK and Canada. Her postgraduate research, including her PhD, took place in northern Afghanistan and aimed to understand how the international assistance flowing into that region for 'participatory development' could be made to be more effective. Her areas of expertise are gender equality, participation, resilience, and partnership working. Within PaRD, Jennifer facilitates the Workstreams and Taskforces and PaRD member engagement in global and regional events throughout the year.

Andrew J. Boyd

Andrew J. Boyd is a theologian with a broad background in higher education teaching and administration and in pastoral ministry. He now serves as Senior Programme Manager of the KAICIID International Fellows Programme.

For over a decade, he taught theology and religious studies in Rome at pontifical seminaries and international university programs, offering classes in ecclesiology and ecumenism, comparative religion and interreligious dialogue, and the history of the papacy. He has been educating future religious leaders and adult learners for nearly 25 years.

He has been an invited lecturer and trainer in several countries, including Austria, Bosnia i Herzegovina, Canada, Germany, Greece, Israel & Palestine, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Thailand, the U.K., the U.S., and the Vatican.

In addition to his professional background, he is a global consultant to the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, focusing on interreligious dialogue, and is on the board of directors of the North American Academy of Ecumenists. He is a past international board member of the Notre Dame Alumni Association.