Strengthening gender awareness moves women a step closer to achieving equity: Reflections from Burkina Faso

#InternationalWomensDay

Yesterday, our Burkina Faso Country Director, Clotaire Tapsoba, shared some reflections on International Women's Day (#IWD2023) with the organisation and we're sharing here today:

#IWD is a public holiday in many countries across the world to commemorate the anniversary of the 1956 women's march, where women marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria, South Africa, to protest carrying of apartheid pass books. Among them is #BurkinaFaso, a country which has taken steps over the past ten years to promote #genderequality.

In Burkina Faso, employment inequalities and disparities exist between women and men in the workplace and there is a high incidence of early marriage – with around 52 percent of women aged 20-24 years married, or in a union, before turning 18. Girls have limited access to education and women are among the minority in sectors including teaching and government.

Yet, in Burkina Faso and other countries where there is a shortage of healthcare workers, women make up a significant proportion of #communityhealthworkers (#CHWs). These community health workers have a powerful role to play in improving access to essential health services. Through #seasonalmalariachemoprevention (#SMC) – a community-based intervention used in Burkina Faso to reduce malaria morbidity and mortality in children under five – female volunteers have been trained, alongside men, to promote ‘role model’ behaviours in their communities. Their role is to help ensure children and their caregivers are supported in the correct and consistent administration of SMC so that it is most effective.

To strengthen gender awareness and equality in Burkina Faso, the country has developed the National Strategy for Accelerating Girls' Education 2011-2021 and the National Gender Strategy for 2020-2024, seeking to remove gender stereotypes from school curriculum and adopt gender-sensitive planning across ministries. Young girls are encouraged to study #STEM subjects and the Ministry of Commerce has led training and equipped women working at small and medium enterprises with tablets to promote e-commerce. Businesswomen are increasingly using tools such as Facebook and digital saving platforms to transfer and collect mobile payments.

This year, Burkina Faso is using IWD to highlight the impact of conflict on women, with events being held to promote female leadership, raise awareness of gender-based violence and issues affecting women and fundraise for vulnerable women, particularly internally displaced communities.

IWD is devoted to celebrating the achievements of women and seeking gender equity globally. This is an opportunity for us to express solidarity with women across the world, to highlight women’s #humanrights and to acknowledge the role women play in ensuring better health outcomes for their families and their communities. We must continue to work to ensure that they have equitable opportunities to contribute and are seen.

Clotaire Tapsoba is Malaria Consortium Burkina Faso Country Director

Find out more about our seasonal malaria chemoprevention programme on our website