During the recently concluded Women Deliver Conference, UNICEF asked for $1 billion by 2025 to go into support of young girls and expressed the need to broaden public finance investment in young girls. In a joint interview with UNICEF’s Deputy Regional Director, UNICEF East and Southern Africa Regional Office, Rania Dagash, and Regional Gender Advisor, UNICEF East, and Southern Africa Regional Office Emmanuelle Compingt, the duo told The New Times how fulfilling it is to see girls standing up for their rights.

Excerpts:

TNT: How does UNICEF’s work in the East and Southern Africa Regional Office align with the objectives of the Women Deliver Conference, particularly in advancing gender equality?

Dagash: The good thing about the alignment between UNICEF and Women Deliver lies in the fact that a majority of the conference objectives coincide with the work and approach of UNICEF. Whether it’s their first objective on collective action, it’s how UNICEF operates across the world. We work with governments, the private sector, civil society, youth, with communities and we create collective action for children. So we align from the first objective to the second one around creating spaces, and safe spaces for conversations. We do that for many adolescents and young people across UNICEF offices. The other interesting thing is accountability is quite central to Women Deliver and that is a bedrock in UNICEF, whether it’s our own accountability as staff in UNICEF or it’s accountability to the children and communities that we serve. So at so many levels, we align with what Women Deliver is doing.

TNT: Can you provide examples of collective actions that UNICEF has taken in the region that made a positive impact on the lives of girls and women?

Dagash: Just some examples to share, in this region, we have the highest burden of HIV globally. We have 4, 000 adolescent girls who are infected every week, new infections. One of the things that we do in Collective Action is work with youth-led organisations and networks to create peer exchanges that help prevent HIV, that destigmatise HIV, that allow peer exchange and learning, actually, between those who are HIV positive in their communities and to incredible results. We also work with adolescent pregnancies, a key problem and challenge in this region. Whether it’s in Lesotho or Botswana or in South Africa or Zimbabwe, whenever an adolescent mother comes to a health clinic, she’s also offered a link to another adolescent mother who’s going through the same experience and it allows them to cope with the experience. In many ways, we work with governments in the region to allow adolescent mothers to return to school and if that’s not possible, alternative education pathways are created. So, it is a collective in almost everything that we do in support of women and girls and empowering them.

TNT: What are some of the key challenges or obstacles faced by girls and women in the region toward gender equality?

Dagash: We have a large HIV burden in this region and that continues to be a major challenge. We are making great progress and strides, but a lot of work remains to be done. We have a learning crisis in this region and in sub-Saharan Africa at large actually. Only one out of ten children is able to read a single sentence by the time they are ten years old. It is a crisis, straight up. But, for girls especially, part of the problem is also, is that some of the social and gender discriminatory norms make it harder for girls to go to school and to stay in school. So, we try and work to unpack those, to break some of these norms, and allow girls to not just get into school, but also stay in school. Women and girls are disproportionately affected by climate change in this region. We know that in 7 out of 10 households, for instance, girls are responsible to fetch water in this region and when a drought or a flood hits, they have to walk longer and work harder to bring water into these households. We also know that access to information and services on sexual and reproductive health is still a challenge in many countries for girls and women in this region. So, around their menstrual health, around HIV, many governments have made great strides and many others have not.

TNT: How does UNICEF address these challenges and work towards sustainable solutions?

Dagash: Everything we do is anchored in sustainable solutions. We work for children and with children in their communities, but we work for and in support of governments in every country that we work with. So at national and subnational levels, we work with governments to provide and generate evidence. We work to influence policies. We work to influence strategies, across education, health, nutrition, water, and sanitation - all the basic services that allow a child not just to survive, but thrive, is the motto that we use. So, it really is across all sectors that we work with governments, with civil society, with communities, with the private sector, towards the system strengthening of all of these sectors. So, it helps buffer children and their communities from future shocks.

TNT: Gender-based violence is a critical issue affecting girls and women globally. What strategies does UNICEF employ to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in the East and Southern Africa region?

Dagash: Globally, for all gender-based violence, we use a three-pronged strategy, and that is preventing it, it’s responding to it, and it’s mitigating it.

TNT: Any parting shots?

Dagash: Being at Women Deliver has been an incredible opportunity, an inspiring opportunity, an intergenerational exchange for women and girls that have left us all reinforced and inspired to hold and create spaces for young girls to lead. They know what they want, they know the world they live in, and they know their place and they just need the investment. UNICEF’s task at this conference has been $1 billion dollars by 2025 to go into support of young girls, for public finance to broaden its investment in young girls.

It is to create more spaces and invest in young girls and ultimately, also give them access to these services that support them to have a more equitable life.

TNT: And from that, what is your major takeaway from Women Deliver?

Dagash: It’s the action that changes young girls’ lives. Less reporting more action.

TNT: And to you Compingt, regarding creating space for girls and women to foster sustainable solutions on gender equality is crucial, how does UNICEF ensure that the voices and perspectives of girls and women are heard and valued in decision-making processes?

Compingt: We recently, just during Women Deliver, launched a UNICEF Adolescent Girl Strategy, and what we saw is like, despite a lot of investments in working to address the needs of girls, we don’t see the change we wanted to see and this is due to the fact that we have not invested enough in their voice, in their agency, and in their leadership. So, one way of addressing that is we are intentionally trying to partner more directly with girls’ networks, with feminist organisations, but we also make sure that we are consulting with girls. Whatever they are, whoever they are, wherever they are.

There are 600 million adolescent girls in the world. They’re very diverse. They have different wishes, dreams, but are also exposed to different risks. It is very important for us to communicate with all girls, especially those who may have been marginalised. In fact, we are even more interested in speaking with those who are harder to reach, such as those in humanitarian settings and regions facing crises. As part of our initial programs, UNICEF is implementing Safe Spaces for Women and Girls. That’s a space where we have social workers and they are working with them. We first work with them on mental health support because they often went through a lot of struggle. And then based on that, we discuss the services they might need, but also what they would like to do in their communities, and we try to help them. So we are not trying to set the agenda for them, but really trying to listen to them.

TNT: How does UNICEF support the empowerment of girls and women in the region, particularly in terms of education, health, and economic opportunities? Can you share some success stories or initiatives that have had a significant impact?

Compingt: For education, first we try to keep girls in school because this is the best protection mechanism. This is the best way for them not to get married young, and not to get pregnant. At the same time, we are very aware that there are a number of skills to be adapted to in the world of today that are often provided to boys and not girls. So we have programmes like Skills for Girls where we invest in girls getting access to coding skills, girls that are learning economics and how to deal with financial literacy. So, we are emphasising the importance of getting beyond the curriculum, which is crucial. One area where we see tangible outcomes is in the confidence levels of girls. There are several key competencies, ranging from critical thinking to stress management, which we are putting more effort into developing for girls. We also know that some girls are not able to stay in school and for them, we are trying to identify alternative pathways to education, like through digital space. Digital literacy is actually critical for girls, if we want them to access new learning, we have to make sure, for instance, adolescent mothers have access to some training and economic empowerment opportunities.

TNT: What do you make of the Women Deliver Conference?

Compingt: It is inspiring. When working towards gender equality, empowering women and girls can be tiring. However, a common message emerged - many of us feel the need to push boundaries and support one another. It gives strength, and hope, and it is comforting to see young girls speaking up and being inspired by older activists.