KU voted to sit in global women’s empowerment committee
KU vice chancellor Paul Wainaina, author Susan Wairegi, Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs Cabinet Secretary Margaret Kobia and Prof. Judith Waudo during the launch of a book titled Nutritional Needs and Status of the Elderly in Kenya. Prof Waudo leads the university’s Women’s Economic Empowerment.
What you need to know:
- The hub now has a critical platform to advance advocacy for the recognition, reward, representation and equitable distribution of care work within households across the country and beyond.
- The University of Nairobi also has a similar hub that was launched in December 2020 in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Kenyatta University Women’s Economic Empowerment (KU-WEE) Hub has been voted to sit in the Global Women’s Economic Empowerment Hub steering committee.
The Global Women’s Economic Empowerment Hub also seeks to ensure there are sustainable and inclusive economic systems supporting decent work and livelihoods and equitable distribution of wealth.
Gender-equitable world
The voting of KU-WEE now means the hub will be at the centre of the global hub’s vision of creating a gender-equitable world without discrimination, inequality or poverty.
The hub now has a critical platform to advance advocacy for the recognition, reward, representation and equitable distribution of care work within households across the country and beyond.
It will also play a key role in ensuring policymakers and international institutions focus on the needs of women and girls, and design, implement, and fund inclusive, evidence-based, feminist, intersectional, and gender-transformative solutions to the challenges they face.
Post-Covid economic recovery
This is especially critical as the country and the world gear up for post-Covid economic recovery.
As a steering committee member, KU-WEE Hub, led by Prof Judith Waudo, will serve for 18 months, actively participating in monthly committee meetings, quarterly full coalition meetings, and relevant working groups, shaping coalition advocacy strategy and plans, and contributing to voting on coalition decisions as needed.
It will contribute to the development and implementation of the coalition’s advocacy strategy, including regular review of progress against agreed benchmarks and ensuring accountability to goals, among other key responsibilities
The hub was established through a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to generate evidence on what works to advance women’s economic empowerment in Kenya.
University of Nairobi
The University of Nairobi also has a similar hub that was launched in December 2020 in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is housed at the university’s African Women Studies Centre in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Its objective is full realisation of women’s economic empowerment and the mission is to be a thought- leader in producing cutting-edge, innovative, rigorous, and accessible evidence through research for impacting policy formulation, implementation and up-scaling for full realisation of women’s empowerment
To achieve this, the WEE Hub is involved in research in Affirmative Action Funds and entrepreneurship; women in formal and informal employment and women’s economic empowerment; childcare and women’s work and women’s movement and policy advocacy for women’s economic empowerment.
