FEMNET

🌍 Across Africa, women are redefining leadership — challenging systems, amplifying collective voices, building movements, and creating lasting change in their communities and beyond. Watch these powerful sentiments from across the continent on what transformative leadership means to them. 🎥👇🏾 And now we want to hear from YOU: What does transformative women’s leadership mean in your experience or community? Share your thoughts in the comments. 💬 #TransformativeWomenLeadership #WomenLeadAfrica @EU_Partnerships

✨What does transformative women’s leadership really look like in practice? In this conversation, Bunmi Dipo Salami, Executive Director at BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights, explores how women are moving beyond simply being present in leadership spaces to actively shifting systems, challenging power structures, and redefining change on their own terms. Read the full interview here: femnet.org/2026/05/from-p… #TransformativeWomenLeadership #WomenLeadAfrica

📢 At the convening on reshaping an African feminist agenda to end gender-based violence, we asked a powerful question: What issue affecting women and girls remains under-highlighted? 🎤The responses were honest, urgent, and deeply reflective — from mental health and economic violence to femicide, digital harm, unpaid care work, and the realities facing women in rural and marginalized communities. 📽️This reel captures voices that are pushing us to look beyond the headlines and confront the issues that are too often ignored. What do you think is still being left out of conversations on gender justice and ending GBV? What realities are women and girls still carrying in silence? #SRHRDialogues #TransformativeWomenLeadership #WomenLeadAfrica @EU_Partnerships | @WECF_INT

At the High-Level Policy Dialogues on Regional Frameworks, our commitment toward strengthening regional responses to GBV is continued advocacy and collaboration with governments, WROs, FBOs, and cultural leaders. Ending GBV requires more than conversations it demands collective action, commitments, and accountability at all levels among key stakeholders. #SRHRDialogues

GBV in Kenya remains deeply tied to weak enforcement, socio-cultural barriers, and gaps between policy and implementation. Using data from the 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, the presentation highlighted the realities of physical violence, sexual violence, intimate partner violence, FGM, and teenage pregnancy across different counties while emphasizing that education, political will, stronger advocacy, and investment in prevention remain critical to ending GBV. Ms. Fidelis Ndungu, Deputy Director Advocacy, National Council for Population and Development (NCPD) #SRHRDialogues

“There is an urgent need to strengthen engagement between feminist movements, national governments, and regional institutions while rethinking how existing platforms can be used to push GBV higher on regional agendas.” Lilian Alex, East African Civil Society Organizations’ Forum (EACSOF)

Strong regional frameworks on GBV already exist across Africa, but implementation, accountability, and coordination remain some of the biggest gaps. 🗣️How do regional bodies move beyond policy commitments into action that is actually felt by women and girls especially those facing conflict-related violence, cross-border exploitation, and systemic barriers to justice and protection? #SRHRDialogues

Today’s High-Level Policy Dialogues on Regional Frameworks marked the beginning of critical conversations on reshaping an African feminist agenda to end gender-based violence. The dialogue brought together regional institutions,women’s rights organizations, and feminist movements to reflect on accountability, policy alignment, collective advocacy, and the urgent need for stronger survivor-centered responses to GBV across Africa. This is only the beginning of deeper conversations, shared commitments, and coordinated feminist action. #SRHRDialogues

Some of the powerful reflections shaping conversations at #SRHRDialogues ✊🏾 From accountability and feminist movement building to ending the normalization of GBV across Africa the conversations continue reminding us why collective feminist action matters now more than ever. #TransformativeWomenLeadership #WomenLeadAfrica

“If technology is shaping our world, then justice demands that we intentionally create entry points for women in rural and marginalized communities, not by forcing them to conform to systems that erase their realities, but by building tools and programmes that meet them where they are. Transformation must be practical, accessible, and grounded in lived experience.” — Bunmi Dipo Salami #SRHRDialogues #TransformativeWomenLeadership #WomenLeadAfrica

“Mental health remains one of the most overlooked realities of gender-based violence. Long after physical wounds heal, survivors continue to carry deep trauma, often without adequate psychosocial support. Too many women and girls are left to navigate pain, economic hardship, and social exclusion alone — making healing and recovery even more difficult.” — Brian Mundia #SRHRDialogues #TransformativeWomenLeadership #WomenLeadAfrica

At the convening on reshaping an African feminist agenda to end gender-based violence, we asked: What issue affecting women and girls remains under-highlighted? “Femicide is not an isolated tragedy, it is a pandemic affecting women and girls across our communities. We must move beyond outrage and commit to dismantling the systems that continue to normalize violence against women.” — Eunice Lumumba #SRHRDialogues #TransformativeWomenLeadership #WomenLeadAfrica

Digital safety is not just a technical issue. It is about power, protection, accountability, and collective feminist care. As feminist movements continue organizing online, digital security can no longer be treated as personal responsibility alone platforms, states, and institutions must also be held accountable for the violence they enable and fail to address. #SRHRDialogues

Technology-facilitated GBV has expanded violence against women and girls across borders, time zones, and into spaces that once felt safe. From coordinated harassment and cyberstalking to sextortion, doxxing, deepfakes, and online attacks targeting women human rights defenders, TFGBV is rapidly becoming one of the biggest feminist and human rights challenges of our time. #SRHRDialogues

Gender equality cannot remain confined to women-specific spaces while major policy, governance, and economic spaces continue operating without feminist voices at the center. Narrative building also remains political work because language shapes beliefs, public attitudes, accountability, and what societies learn to normalize. #SRHRDialogues #TransformativeWomenLeadership

🎶“African women where are we right now, and how long will it take us to achieve gender equality?” That question carried into Day 2 conversations on how women across the continent continue facing the same realities ,GBV, weak implementation of laws and policies, shrinking accountability, and systems that still fail survivors despite years of advocacy. #SRHRDialogues #TransformativeWomenLeadership #WomenLeadAfrica

If we want to dismantle gender-based violence, we have to start with the words we use. Transformative women’s leadership is about recognizing that advocacy language isn't just about policy it’s about building narrative power. We remain intentional about crafting feminist messaging that centers survivors, exposes systemic gaps, and demands radical change. #SRHRDialogues #TransformativeWomenLeadership #WomenLeadAfrica

You cannot build a transformative women’s leadership movement without centering survivors. True feminist leadership means auditing our language, advocacy, and organizing to ensure they are trauma-informed, healing-forward, and survivor-centered not just in reports, but in practice. “Survivors are not statistics. They are architects of the future we are building”. #SRHRDialogues #TransformativeWomenLeadership