UN Women Executive Director and Canadian Prime Minister to visit Liberia
Date:
UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka starts her travels to mark the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Campaign with a visit to Liberia from 23 to 25 November. During the visit, she will take part in a high-level panel on the empowerment and leadership of women and girls, alongside President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Ahead of the panel discussion, on the evening of 23 November, the Executive Director will launch the 16 Days of Activism Campaign with the orange lighting of Liberia’s Ministry of Gender Children and Social Protection building in Monrovia. This year’s action theme, ‘Orange the World: Raise Money to End Violence against Women and Girls’, calls for lighting up iconic buildings around the world in orange to raise global awareness and mobilizing resources to end the pandemic of violence everywhere.
During the visit, the Executive Director will also hold bilateral discussions with the Ambassador of Sweden to Liberia, Lena Nordström, to reemphasize the strong partnership between Sweden and UN Women, as exemplified by Sweden’s support to a new Liberia five-year joint programme on sexual and gender-based violence.
On her last day, Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka will visit a training for women entrepreneurs on water sanitation and hygiene value chain.
The visit comes on the heels of a recently passed and commendable piece of legislation, which creates seven additional legislative seats; five of which will be occupied exclusively by women and one each for persons with disabilities and youth.
It is the second visit this year of the UN Women Executive Director to the West African country. Liberia is preparing to hold legislative and presidential election in 2017, which will end the term of Africa’s first elected woman President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who has been at the helm since 2006.