Radio Miraya
2662: UN Women: Deputy Country Representative, Rukaya Mohammed
A very good morning to you, you're listening to the Miraya breakfast, of course, this is where the big conversation begins every morning, it's 25 minutes till the top of the hour. Now, as we continue in the same spirit, talking about women in South Sudan, while on Friday, we commemorated International Women's Day. Now, this year's theme was invest in women, accelerate progress. Now, events are still taking place all around the country, now in support of women in South Sudan, the United Nations Women supported many activities. Now, to set a light on it, we are glad to be joined here in the studio by the United Nations Women Deputy Country Representative, Rokaya Muhammad joins us in the studio, so we can have a conversation and look at some of the activities that UN women have been doing in the country, especially in this International Women's Month. Rokaya, good morning. Good to have you on the Miraya breakfast show. Good morning. It's a pleasure to be with you. Good morning to listen. Yes, and happy International Women's Month. Thank you. Yes. Now, last week, of course, on Friday, we commemorated the International Women's Day. UN women supported quite a number of activities, and told, now, can you just tell us what some of these activities are, and if they have already concluded? Yes, thank you so much. So we commence with the International Women's Celebration, so the National Celebration actually is part of UN and government effort to take events and development into the county, so the National Celebration was done in Mundry, and was in the Victoria on Friday, so we had the opportunity of having the DS-R-G, R-C-N-S-C, I need to kick it with S. The Minister of Gender, who also comes from Mundry, and she was the Governor of Western Victoria, because also we had a number of MPs who were also with S Women Commissioners. It was really a huge success with women in uniform, men in uniform. I can say close to more than 1,000 participants. I understand. Yes, and you were there in Mundry, as well. I was there, of course, as if you forget my ear. Yeah, give me a picture of what exactly happened and how colorful they were and all. It was really colorful, very, very amazing. When we arrived, actually, so it was organized in a very big open space, it was so nice to see students in their uniform, women in uniform, women in different groups, from different parts of Western Victoria also showed up, including the Governor. He came from Yambiio, all the way to Mundry, the Minister of Gender, traveled all the way, and you could see that they were so excited to see the Minister of Gender, who comes from the joint, the Celebration of International Women's Day, and the DS-R-G also been a female, so they were really excited to say we have the Deputy Special Representative of the Second General female, we have the Minister of Gender, who is a female, and also Mundry has two of the commissioners, who are also female, so it was really an exciting event with a lot of key messages on the need for us to have inclusivity involving women on all aspects of peace and political processes and also invest in how we can critically invest women, especially the young girls, who have this drama display where they are talking about how we and early marriage and forced marriage, how parents should invest in their education because education is a gateway to all the successes, so that we should avoid receiving dowries and additives and giving out young women, and also how we should, and this harmful cultural practice that really ends up affecting women and discriminates women disproportionately and affects their active and equal participation in peace and development processes in the country. I can feel it was really, really very enjoyable and with quite a lot of important messages. What stood out for you? Yes, for me it was just the role that the student in the young girls and Mundry played on early marriage and forced marriage and also the need for investment, so that was just the key message. Please stop putting this into marriage early, let us go to school, invest in our education so that we can grow up and become meaningful citizens and contribute to the building peace and developing this country and also participate in leadership and political positions, so for me it really stood out, it was so touchy, it was so touchy and also the fact that Mundry has a lot of women in leadership. That's why Western Equatoria in general have seen that looking out of the 10 commissioners to a woman, the means of gender coming from there, the speaker also comes from Yambio, which is Western Equatoria, and you can see the women are very articulate, very strong, very passionate, and the fact that I also worked in Mundry before, that was 2015-2018 as a women economic empowerment specialist, I used to implement a lot, we constructed the women empowerment center in Mundry, and I was so happy to see that the center was still there, the women were making reference to this center as a rallying point for women, I used to spend a whole week, because those days when you go to Mundry, there's no flight, so we plan our intervention, instead, their own house will drop by the following week, then we'll come back out the training, so we sleep with the community, and I make sure that investment, like I put money in Mundry, like outing by stationery, outing, look for any outside catering, everything is procured, and done, made in Mundry, procured by the people, and we give contract to the woman to prepare the food, sort of giving me to another outside hatred, yes, I was so happy to be back also in Mundry, and see the woman. I can feel the excitement that you all actually had when you were there, now another activity that the UN women is involved in is Ring the Bell, which is taking place actually today in Dubai, I'm meant to understand, what is Ring the Bell all aboard, and is it open to the public who are the participants? Absolutely, so Ring the Bell, it really means Ring, so to you know, when you Ring the Bell, you are really stressing emphasising something like that, it is time to go in, it is so Ring the Bell is a private sector, so it's an initiative that UN women have been doing, but focusing on private sector, really on international means to bring around all the private sector in the country to ring, to re-accord the importance of investing in women, the importance of developing tailor-made projects that address the needs of women, and really promoting gender equality within the private sector, within their workplace, within their market place, and also at a community level, so it's just an event that we are bringing most of privacy, and we are focusing on financial institutions, because this year's team is investing women, I celebrate gender equality empowerment, so we are partnering with Alpha Bank and WFP to organise the event, but we also invited Qush Bank, Stambi Bank, African Development Bank is also there, because it's even supporting women, UNDP on a financial inclusion project, so they are also there to give, we have all the other cooperatives, so we just, we invited a number of bank institutions, and then we used to create a, to also service and information sharing, so these banks in one world have tailor-made project for a product for women on businesses, but some of these women are not even aware, so we've also invited women on businesses, women entrepreneurs, the grassroots to come and also interact, understand this product and how they can access it, and also share the challenges they face in really accessing financial products, because financial inclusion is really critical, if you have to enhance the gender equality, yesterday we also had the matter, on Saturday we had the marathon walk-a-tone, as part of the celebration we had more than 250, mostly UN staff, NGOs, also participating, we had the, HANA of the DSLR NGOs, so coming to give a award, to give a medal to the participant, we use that location to also raise awareness on the team of international women, say how can we all be deliberate about ensuring inclusion of women in leadership, investing in women, and promoting their participation in all aspects of peace and development processes, and we raise funds as part of that, because of the registration, we made people to contribute 20 dollars, and we are going to use it to face John Garran, a prime risk of, in Juba. Wow, wow, now, about the today event, particularly, I meant to believe this, of course, as you mentioned earlier, is going to be more of gender-responsive financing, yes, so how is this event taking place particularly, describe it, is it going to be like a panel discussion, what exactly is it? Yes, so ring the bell event, so it's going first, we'll start with opening remarks by African women, Bank, by UN women, and also Stump, Afa Bank, which is a co-organizer, and WFP, then after that we have a round table panel discussion, yes, we have all the banking institutions really outlining the products that they have to empower women, to support women entrepreneurs, to support gender equality, and how within the institution they are also empowering women, then we have the women on businesses, on the other side, also to be a discussion, the real challenges they have in accessing, because some of the bankers, when you meet them separately, they say we have this product for women, and then the women are like, you know, if you look at the statistics, only 4.7% of women have access to bank accounts, so the statistics is really alarming, but then you talk to the bank, they say we have products, still I made for women, so this event is also going to really bring the two together, so if you have the product, we are not accessing it, these are the challenges, perhaps you have cumbersome requirements, or you need collateral, or you need it that we cannot, so just for example, how can we facilitate easy access of this woman to some of this product that are critical for the economic empowerment, and then for the contribution of peace and development in the country, you know, if you economically empower a woman, then she can work out of abusive relationships, so like you are minimizing, or you are reducing her vulnerability to gender violence, if a woman is economically empowered, she has political and social capital, she can participate in it later because you need every money to campaign and other things, and also, yeah, so those are the things we really see, economic empowerment as critical to kickstart in other form of empowerment, and this event is going to very important, a chamber of comments will be there, if you attend the speaker is also going to be there, to as a keynote African development bank, and yeah, not open to general public, but they will be published just because it's already seen blue, the space is very small, yes, but we freely, we are expecting 30 people, yes, and then what do you expect as an outcome of this particular kind of conversation or discussion later, gender responsive financing for women, as you mentioned clearly, banks can come, advertise, we have this, you know, packages for women and all that, but in real sense if an individual woman gets there, sometimes it's very, very hard for them to access those services, what could you like to see as the outcome of this particular conversation? Yes, so the outcome of this conversation today is just to mention that there is, we created this platform of information sharing and interaction between the banks and then the women on businesses so that they can also mention the challenges directly that they are facing with regards to the product that these banks have, and also to raise, we'll talk about the gender responsive financing, which is another event on Friday, so today is just the ring the bell for brand sector, we also have the, yes, gender responsive financing, ring the bell is also part of it, but then we have a separate event also with the panel discussion, bringing women, bringing a minister of finance, bringing a minister of gender, bringing some financial institutions on how can we be deliberate about our investment decisions and our spending on gender equality, whatever we are doing, if you invest in school, make sure that it will be used equally among men and women, if you are investing, if you are budgeting, how are you allocating money, if you are procuring, goods and services, how are you buying from women on businesses? So those are the things that because we realize gender equality cannot be some, it is everybody's weight, so it is a holistic, all of society's approach, so if you are deliberate about it in every dollar, every penny that we are spending, really looking at it from a gender and how is it going to impact men and women, how is this final product going to, so that is really going to be very helpful, so that will happen also on Friday, the gender responsive financing, but today we want to really create a platform for experience sharing, for women to access information, also to tell the back-end sector some of the challenges they have in accessing, so that they can also soften the requirements or tailor the product so that it can appropriately meet the needs of women on businesses to accelerate the economic impact. Okay, just before you go, how can we all participate in empowering women right from the grassroots, the grassroots women until to the top, what do we do, as your final message? Thank you so much, yes, as my final message, we all have a role to play, according to well economic forum, that it will take 200 years for us to attend gender equality and it means my generation will not see gender equality, my children's generation and even my children's children, my grandchildren, so which means that we have to, it shouldn't be business as usual, we all have a role to play, even as a mother or as a father, at home, right, at home and paid care work, how do you also loosing the burden of your wife or of your children, how are you also conscious, when you have your son and your daughter, you encourage the son to go and do homework and you ask the girl to go and make tea for you, for instance, you know, so it's just a deliberate effort, so first, as individual, we have to be mindful of that and then as government, gender responsive policies, the peace agreement has a provision, a woman enterprise fund, youth enterprise fund, so these provisions, framework has been developed, also bills, women enterprise bill has been developed, how is it going to be passed and implemented to make economic opportunity available, you know, so it's about creating the enabling environment at household level, also within at the national level, so financial institution making credit, financial inclusion available, and also we have relation coming, how do we prepare women, because when you have more women in leadership, then they are likely to make decisions that will really advance the entire quality, their decision will be invest more in health, invest more in education and education is a gateway and you know how women are educated, like very few men are educated, it's also done, so these are some of the, if you really, government has their role in terms of policy environment and investment, in critical areas that can accelerate gender equality, the UN has a role by really being conscious, whether you are WFP, you are FAO, you are what, how are you consciously empowering women in all the dollars that you are spending in the country, then also we have the private sector, like what we are discussing today, detailing their product, being deliberate, even the way we buy goods and services, how are we making sure that, because globally only 1% of public procurement goes to women on businesses, so how can we be conscious about it and increase when we are buying something less low for women vendors, Kenya has a policy, 30% of affirmative, public procurement should go to businesses owned by women, youth and persons with disabilities, how are we also going to do that, so that in whatever we do, whatever we do, we are conscious about empowering women, and then promoting gender equality, that is the only way and also ending all discriminatory practices, I think that is what is really hindering a women empowerment, it's a certain high rate of GBV, and also as GBV and conflict related to as well, Pauli. All right. Rokaya Muhammad, thank you so much for coming to Merai Stidius, we wish you all the best in what we do, what you do, we do appreciate your time. Thank you very much for having me.