IWD 2025 reflections: Three decades post-Beijing

The 2024 report, the 18th edition of the Global Gender Gap Index, benchmarked gender parity across 146 economies, providing a basis for the analysis of gender parity developments across two-thirds of the world’s economies. As an African, I was super delighted to see Namibia at number eight and South Africa at number 18. Two African countries, one in the global top 10 and another in the global top 20! This is something to celebrate and a call to understudy why they ranked so high. Other African countries that featured in the top 50 are Rwanda at  number 39, Liberia at number 42 and Eswatini at number 47.

Happy International Women’s Day 2025 to all readers! March 8th, the globally designated International Women’s Day (IWD), a holiday celebrated annually to focus on issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, violence and abuse against women is here again. The 2025 theme is “Accelerate Action” and highlights the urgent need to drive gender equality through bold, decisive actions, rather than slow progress. Thus, my motivation for writing this article, with performance improvement and transformation thinking.

Introduction

I am a female leader with personal identity and orientation of a global citizen, proudly African of Nigerian extraction, and firm belief in the wholesome value of humanity, in general, for development and societal sustainability, based on goodwill and purpose. As such, this article will highlight the context within which the IWD emerged, some emerging empirical data, and proffer some suggestions for consideration, based on continental practice benchmarks. I also believe in collective action – at the individual, family unit, institutional, national and continental levels. This because from where I sit as an international consultant, who has had the privilege of participating in two of the African Peer Review Mechanism’s (APRM) Country Review Missions (CRMs) of two countries in Africa’s Southern region and function as the CEO of the Africa Private Sector Summit with other continental exposures, there are commendable practices to glean from, for systemic continental improvement. Therefore, like Fareed Zakaria of CNN’s Global Public Square (GPS) magazine programme would say, ‘Lets get started’!

Contextual Background

In announcing the theme for IWD2025, internationalwomensday.com asked us to all imagine a gender equal world; a world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination; a world that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive; a world where difference is valued and celebrated. It therefore calls for gender equality and collectively #AccelerateAction. Then the big question – Is this possible in Africa, as we progress in our aspirations for the Africa we want (Agenda2063)?  History has it that IWD has been around for over a hundred years, as have many of the issues globally still impacting women’s advancement. We may recall that Vladimir Lenin declared 8 March as IWD in 1922 to honour the women’s role in 1917 Russian Revolution; it was subsequently celebrated on that date by the socialist movement and communist countries. The IWD holiday became a mainstream global holiday, following its promotion by the United Nations in 1977.

Another important milestone on the subject of this article to consider, is the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action, which flagged 12 key areas where urgent action was needed to ensure greater equality and opportunities for women and men, girls and boys. It also laid out concrete ways for countries to bring about change. The Beijing conference built on political agreements reached at three previous global conferences on women, and consolidated five decades of legal advances aimed at securing the equality of women with men in law and in practice. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action 1995 was unanimously adopted by 189 countries as an agenda for women’s empowerment that is now considered the key global policy document on gender equality. The big question: Now three decades post-Beijing Conference of 1995, how have African countries progressed on protocols acceded to in 1995?

In preparation for Beijing +30 Status for Africa, the African Union, with support of the United Nations Economic Commission on Africa, facilitated a Beijing +30 Review Ministerial Consultative Expert Group Meeting on 6 November in Addis Ababa, in preparation of the 69^th session of the Commission on Status of Women (CSW) to be held from 10-21 March. The meeting led to a published resolution, which concluded that ‘different measures need to be adopted as implementation accelerators for proposed actions to yield impact at scale. The most important are stakeholders’ commitments, strengthening grassroots women and girls movements, the existence of strong institutions, and particularly Africa’s ownership of the implementation process by putting in place all necessary measures, including financing these actions with Africa’s own resources’.

In terms of global benchmarks, the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI) annually benchmarks the state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment. Since launching in 2006, it is the longest-standing index tracking the progress of numerous economies’ efforts towards closing these gaps over time. The 2024 report, the 18th edition of the Global Gender Gap Index, benchmarked gender parity across 146 economies, providing a basis for the analysis of gender parity developments across two-thirds of the world’s economies. As an African, I was super delighted to see Namibia at number eight and South Africa at number 18. Two African countries, one in the global top 10 and another in the global top 20! This is something to celebrate and a call to understudy why they ranked so high. Other African countries that featured in the top 50 are Rwanda at  number 39, Liberia at number 42 and Eswatini at number 47.

Call for Action

As we mark this year’s IWD with the theme ‘Accelerated Action’, I reflect on the outcome of Namibia and South Africa’s GGPI ranking and feel obliged to advise the following for performance improvement for accelerated action:

On jurisdictional/national levels: Namibia’s Zebra Principle works and may have greatly impacted its global top 10 ranking as number eight. South Africa’s approach to near universal adoption of the King IV Governance code, which promotes corporate altruism and responsible citizenship across the private, public and social sectors, and the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE), are worthy of understudy and possible domestication in other jurisdiction, with Rwanda, Liberia and Eswatini sharing their principles and practices as well.

On an institutional level: adoption of any combination of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that align with institutional brand values as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) be considered. Ensuring inclusive gender practices in labour practices, with consideration of gender life cycle stages for societal sustainability and possibility of non-punitive career breaks and remote work have long term brand loyalty in employees and service providers across gender.

On individual levels within families and communities: misogynistic resistance to women empowerment is real in some cultures in Africa and around the world, especially male dominated and paternalistic societies need to educate societies on the right of all persons, irrespective of gender, age or social standing to liberty to pursue life aspirations and contribute to society.

Conclusion

The African woman is an amazing reservoir of resources. Therefore, she needs nurturing through life cycle stages – as a girl child; as an undergraduate young woman; as a professional or entrepreneur; as a mother nurturing future generations, through her reproductive years as a wife and mother with growing and dependent children; as a mature professional who wants to contribute her experiences; and as a retired grandmother and great-grandmother or matriarch with responsibility for passing the baton of family cross generational dignity, honour and purpose.

There is so much gender parity can bring to our development agenda, as a people. So, let’s accelerate action! No more talking!

References

United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (6 November, 2024). Resolutions of the Ministerial Consultative Group Meeting of the Gender Expert Group https://www.uneca.org/eca-events/sites/default/files/resources/documents/gender-poverty-social-policy/beijing-30/african_common_position_document.final_outome_document.pdf

World Economic Forum (June 2024). Global Gender Gap -2024 Insights Report https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2024.pdf

Lucy Surhyel Newman is an international consultant, policy advisor and a 2024 Modern Governance 100 Honoree, wrote from Lagos, Nigeria. Email: Lucy@drlsnewman.com.