By Ruth Nabakwe
March 6, 2000
Paris, France - African and Caribbean women residing in Paris are on the move to identify how best they could contribute to the socio-economic advancement of Africa with the aim of promoting empowerment of women. They initiated discussions on the matter at a meeting during the week-end under the aegis of the global 2000 Women's March Against poverty, violence and the fight for equitable socio-economic resource sharing world-wide in view of globalisation trends.
Organised by the Pan-African Alliance in collaboration with various African women's organisations in France, the women met Saturday to explore ways of ensuring a better future for Africa and women in particular. The global 2000 March is a major drive against poverty and non-violence, initiated by the Federation of Women in Quebec with support from UNESCO. The march is expected to arrive at the UN headquarters in New York 17 October, and will involve women's groups world-wide to promote a Culture of Peace.
The president of the Pan-African Alliance, Afro-Caribbean woman, Mireille Pame Balin, urged participants not to mince words but to state the root cause of Africa's current economic decline in order to identify solutions. The theme of the meeting was African and Caribbean Women on the Onslaught for Economic Power. Through reading about Africa's past heritage, Mireille observed that the continent will take hold of the reality of its socio-economic natural resource potential, which she said, have hitherto been exploitation to its disadvantage.
She called on the women to reinforce Pan-African solidarity by engaging in efforts that would change the lop-sided global socio-economic imbalances that disadvantaged poor regions, particularly in Africa. The women despised conflicts in Africa, saying that they negatively affected their role to mould children positively.
"While women have vowed to ensure they take up their central role in Africa, men too must live up to their responsibilities and stop divisions through ethnic exclusions and genocide," Denise Ndzakou, an economist from Congo (Brazzaville), said. She said solutions to the various factors that combined to derail Africa from positive socio-economic objectives could only be found when the continent has peace and harmony. The women complained that the lack of financial resources hampered achievement of goals set by various women's organisations.
Architect Amelie Essesse told the meeting that her organisation - Architecture and Development - had taken interest in promoting African architectural designs adopted to the continent's various cultural traditions, life-styles and climatic conditions. "I have travelled widely on the continent and gained experience on what constitutes African architecture, unfortunately in architectural learning centres on the continent, one hardly hears about African architecture with a few exceptions such as Egypt and other countries in the northern Africa," she lamented.
She expressed fear that future generations would have limited architectural point of reference if Africans do not practice their own architecture now. She, therefore, challenged research institutes to help identify materials best suited to designs for African architecture.
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