Association of African Women for Research and Development (AAWORD)
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AFARD-AAWORD
Sicap Sacré-Coeur I, N° 8798, Dakar-Sénégal
Bp:15367 Dakar Fann
Tél: 221 824 20 53/825 23 49
Fax: 221 824 20 56
Email: aaword@sentoo.sn
Website: http://www.afard.org
Malika BENRADI
(President)
BP 8057, Nations Unies 10102
Agdal, Rabat Morroco
Tel/Fax: (212-37) 713450
Cell: 212 61489348
Email: malika_benradi@hotmail.com
Mrs. Clotilde D. ThiareSENE, Program Officer IFP Senegal, aawordifp@sentoo.sn
Caroline Ndiaye-Diallo, Administrative Assistant
Khady Dioum-Guisse, Accountant
Description
The Association of African Women for Research and Development (AAWORD) is a pan-African non-governmental organization based in Dakar, Senegal. AAWORD undertakes and supports research and training and advocacy with the intention of promoting the economic, political and social rights of African women. Created in 1977, by a small group of African women, the Association has steadily grown in importance and covers almost all the countries of the continent with 16 national chapters, with 14 in Africa, one in Europe and one for African women living in the Americas. The arrival of young members has contributed to the development of the Association, which has several members spread over Francophone, Anglophone, Lusophone and Arabic-speaking Africa. AAWORD is a collection of multidisciplinary members who are made up of researchers, trainers, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, and experts in natural sciences, not to mention advocacy specialists in economics, education, political science, and communication.
AAWORD’s mission is to build a powerful African women’s movement linking the fight for the promotion of human rights, especially those of women, to the theory and practice of development; and to bring forth African women’s contribution to sustainable and democratic development. To achieve its objectives, AAWORD engages in research and training as elucidated below:
Research activities: Research is one of AAWORD’s fundamental missions. Since March 1989, the AAWORD Secretariat has been financing a research program, which is being carried out by the national chapters. Concluded researches include thematic papers on: Women as Agents and Beneficiaries of Development Assistance; Women and reproduction in Africa; Women and the Mass Media In Africa; Articles written by the young participants of the leadership Training Program; Gender, Economic integration, Governance and Methods of contraceptives; Gender and HIV/AIDS in Africa; and Women and violence in Africa. Current research is focusing on the perceptions and representations of African men and women of the equality between men and women. The association’s research is published and disseminated throughout the network’s members and to research and institutions of higher learning in and around Africa. These publications include: AAWORD Occasional Paper Series (research findings and conference proceedings); and a Bibliographic Series (annotated bibliographies); The AAWORD Journal (bi-annual academic forum reflecting current feminist theoretical debates, methodological / concerns, empirical analysis and reconstruction of women's history in Africa; AAWORD Occasional Papers/Bibliographical Series.
Training: AAWORD provides training to its NGO members and to its international institutions, training in the domain of its competence using a gender and development approach. Various training workshop on Gender and Research for Development with Women; Regional African Strategies for the Effective Implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action Globalization and Human Development; and the Youth Leadership Program have been held. These trainings are further targeted at young women through the association’s youth leadership program, which aims at mentoring and integrating young women into the women’s movement.
These activities are encompassed in the association’s programs under the titles of: Gender and Transformation of Economic and Social Policies in Africa; Women's Entry into Sexual Life; Governance, Democratization and Women’s Political Empowerment; Violence against Women, notably the Traditional Practices associated with Widowhood; Conflict Transformation and Peace Building; Youth Leadership.
The organization has multifaceted partnerships both in Africa and with development partners abroad. Its current and previous partner organizations include: AAWORD National Chapters; Association of African Universities (AAU); Association of African Women Specialists in Communications (APAC);Association of Women in Development (AWID); Center of Concern (CoC); Conseil des ONGs d'Appui au Développement (CONGAD); Council for the Development of Social Sciences Research in Africa (CODESRIA); Development Alternatives with Women for a new Era (DAWN); ECA-African Center for Women; Ford Fondation; Forum for African Women Educationalist (FAWE); Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation; Gender Economic Reform in Africa (GERA); International Alert; Network Women in Development Europe (WIDE); Path Finder International; and Plan International.
Track Record
AAWORD can confidently claim to be the oldest autonomous regional organization for African women's research and development. It has more than twenty years experience in the struggle for enhancing women’s status and participation in developing Africa, with expertise in project and implementation design, training and regional coordination on gender and development issues in the African zone. AAWORD has attained significant expertise in gender analysis and among its members have several university professionals and decision makers known world wide. In addition, the Association has fully integrated in its research programs, multidisciplinary and participatory settings as major tools for research and advocacy.
The Association has global representation in Africa, Europe and the Americas with the presence of field researchers in African countries. It has garnered extensive experience in advocacy work on behalf of African women at national, regional and global levels; and in information dissemination on issues related to gender and development in Africa.
Since the formation of AAWORD in 1977, research on gender and women in Africa, drawing on a wide spectrum of theories on gender and other lines of social division, has grown dramatically. On a continental scale, AAWORD champions the promotion of gender equality and the use of gender as an analytical tool in all social sciences. AAWORD has greatly contributed to the promotion of gender and development issues and disseminating important research results in Africa. The Association’s actions are part of a movement that was instrumental in influencing African governments’ awareness of the importance of taking political decisions in favor of women. AAWORD played a catalytic role in the African and international women’s movement in particular by raising global awareness on gender issues as they relate to social, economic and cultural development in Africa.
Through AAWORD, many African, Caribbean, African-American and other Third World women have developed a strong commitment to gender issues. It is also through AAWORD that new women’s networks such as the Forum of African Women Educationalists (FAWE) was created. AAWORD also initiated the creation of the Association of Women Specialists in Communications. AAWORD members played a key role in assisting CODESRIA in launching its Annual Gender Institute. Furthermore, several Ministries of Women Affairs seek from AAWORD technical back up, advice and intellectual guidance on key policy issues affecting women’s lives.
Challenges
Despite the pace setting trend that AAWORD has set in developing research priorities on women in development in Africa, the association faces varied challenges similar to those afflicting many organizations in Africa. Institutionally, the lack of sustained funding has hampered the program activities and day to day running of the Association. The programmatic staff of the organization can thus not be sustained due to the lack of funds. This has led to a decline of the influence and reach of the organization over the years, which is partly a manifestation of the difficult economic and political conditions in which many women's organizations on the continent find themselves.
There has also been the growth of multiple institutions performing the role that AAWORD initially had set a niche competence in. There is a need for the organization to strategize on new emergent spheres, capitalizing on their advantageous network of members in developing new knowledge and expertise on new African feminism and women’s development.
Opportunities
The successful history of AAWORD in setting standards in women’s development research remains an immense attribute that can be capitalized on. The network created through its membership remains an important resource for the further development of research on African women’s development agenda. According to AAWORD’s staff, the main challenge is of an institutional nature—funding for program activities, attracting and sustaining good leadership as well as personnel development. These are key to ensuring that AAWORD restores its position as a pacesetter in women’s development in Africa.
For the association to engage on the youth leadership focus that is emphasized in its programs, it requires great support especially in the running of the research and training areas. One of them, is the project on “The perceptions and representations of African men and women of the equality between men and women”. Its objectives include: review and identification of levels of inequalities; socially orientated sexual discriminations relating to the socio-culturally established roles and specified in the different countries concerned with the survey; evaluating the level of progress made in the area of equality in both private and public social relationships between men and women; and identifying the obstacles and resistances which perpetuate men-women inequalities.
The above mentioned areas are key opportunities for donors and partners to contribute to the institution and further enable it to diversify its research thematic areas, taking into consideration the challenging future of women in Africa.
