The We Cannot Wait Consortium was well-represented by SIHA Network and FIDA Uganda at the 68th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68), held from March 11th to 22nd, 2023, in New York. Two impactful side events were convened, shedding light on critical issues affecting women’s empowerment in Sudan and the broader Horn of Africa region.
Our inaugural event focused on some of the key root causes of women’s systematic impoverishment in Sudan and the impacts of post-conflict policies on women’s wealth generation. The speakers utilized lessons learned from failed post-war policies to advocate for gender-sensitive institutional and financial strategies that will lay the foundation for women’s sustained access to wealth generation and end the continued cycles of violence, funded by war economies, extortion, and the suppression of women’s ability to maintain or attain wealth and contribute to the overarching goals of alleviating poverty and strengthening institutions with a gender perspective.
The second panel focused on key gender-specific barriers to women’s accumulation of wealth in Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda, and Ethiopia. The panelists addressed laws of succession, inheritance, marriage, and divorce, as well as the interplay of national law with customary and religious law codes, as these areas of law play a major role in the generational economic disempowerment of women in the Horn. The economic disempowerment of women is a primary and significant barrier to their inclusion in key political and decision-making spaces, platforms, and decisions. It is centrally important to dismantle legal and structural barriers to women’s wealth/resource accumulation, as women’s access to wealth and consistent wealth generation is a necessary condition for them to be meaningfully engaged in political and peace processes. Further, more equitable distributions of wealth are associated with increased levels of security and the longevity of peace.
