DEADLINE: 10 February, 2020
The Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA), adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, in Beijing, China, set twelve (12) Critical Areas of concerns for national governments of 189 UN Member states, and the international community to achieve in order to reach the goal of equality, development and peace. Together they constitute a global agenda for ensuring the improvement of human rights for women and girls. These twelve Critical Areas of concerns also produced an important momentum and framework for action that galvanized governments, organizations and advocates across the world.
As the year 2020 presents the occasion for Nigeria and the global community to mark the twenty-fifth (25th ) anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on women and adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA), and five years of the 2030 Agenda for governments to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, there is an urgent need to redefine and document progressive blueprint towards advancing women’s rights and adhering to key global policy document with historic commitments to achieve gender equality completely free of violence against women and girls.
Leveraging on the ongoing National-level reviews as the core of the Beijing Plus twenty – five process, at the local and international levels, the Nigerian Women Trust Fund (NWTF) will organize a 2-day National Conference on ’25 Years Since Beijing: Accelerating Commitments in Nigeria’ in Abuja. NWTF will proceed to provide the needed platform to review progress and challenges so far and advance concrete actions towards closing the gaps in the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action. Guided with specifics to its key mandates and the goal of the Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (EVAWG) project supported by Ford Foundation, NWTF will situate proposed conference within the purview of the following critical areas of concern in relation to achieving gender equality, promoting women’s empowerment and protecting women’s human rights in Nigeria.
NWTF hereby invites gender advocates/activists, feminists, scholars, social workers, policy makers, media and other stakeholders to submit abstracts on ’25 Years Since Beijing: Accelerating Commitments in Nigeria’using the current context, emerging issues and prospects for gender equality and women’s rights empowerment and protection in Nigeria and focused specifically on the following thematic areas:
i. Violence Against Women
ii. Women in Power and Decision Making
iii. Institutional Mechanisms for the empowerment and advancement of Women, and
iv. Women’s Human Rights
Writers of selected abstracts will be contacted and contacted to develop full papers for presentation at the conference. The conference will offer the opportunity to critically interrogate the process since after the Beijing Conference and examine status of Nigeria on gender equality in comparison to contemporary global achievements and trends. It will also serve as a knowledge hub in leading advocacy and other strategic alliances for gender equality and women’s empowerment through a documented and published instrument as a key conference deliverable.
The conference will serve to contribute to strengthening gender advancement in Nigeria through the equal participation of women and men, marginalized groups and other stakeholders around a new and renewed dialogue for acceleration, change, and actions to prevent and eliminate all forms of discriminations against women and girls.
The deadline for submitting a detailed abstract (400 words) is 10 February, 2020. Abstracts should be submitted by email to info@womenfund.org. Only authors of selected abstracts will be contacted by March 10, 2020.
For further inquiries, please contact Info@womenfund.org or call +234-92921736 or visit the official website here.
