FAO.org

Equality for women has always been a passion for Alima Sagito Saeed. After finishing school, she went straight to university to study development and has worked in the field ever since, with one aim: to improve gender equality and create better lives for women in her home country of Ghana.

Alima is now the Executive Director of women’s organisation Savannah Women Integrated Development Agency (SWIDA) in northern Ghana. “I thought why not put these women together and mobilise them to harness the potential they have shown?” Alima said. “That is how I became a women leader: by using my own experiences to encourage women to work together.”

Over the last 18 years SWIDA has grown enormously, from a small core team to 70 staff across different programmes. Alima works with over 150 groups of women farmers, shea pickers and processers and agribusinesses, training them in sustainable farm practices, environmental resources management, agribusiness enterprises, savings and loans models, leadership, and advocacy.

“Our organisation promotes women’s inclusion, enabling women to overcome the challenge of lack of access and control over natural resources. We are intentional about getting women into agriculture and protecting the environment, and making sure women can better deal with climate change and how it affects their livelihoods,” Alima explained. 

“We also make sure women understand - and stand up for - their rights. It is a platform to promote women and local leadership so that women can be at the decision-making tables and become representatives in the local governance processes,” she added. 

A seat at the table: CSW67

This year, Alima invested her resources in attending the 67th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW67) at the United Nations Headquarters in March 2023. The theme was "Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.”

“As a woman that works with and for women, we are faced with a lot of challenges to do with ICT,” she said. “I needed to go there to learn all about it and see what the challenges and solutions are in different countries. I also wanted to connect physically with what women empowerment and gender equality mean from the UN perspective.”

Alima’s key takeaways

Side events and panel discussions focused on how technology can reduce the burden on women and improve gender equality and empowerment of women in Africa. This includes through the creation of smart cities that are inclusive for women and girls. 

The first thing Alima noticed is the great progress that has been made.

“Now, when we talk gender equality almost everyone understands that it’s important. It is no longer an issue that we have to explain, and there has been a massive transformation,” she said. However, she noted that change is still far too slow, and more needs to be done to effectively promote the preconditions that enable women to achieve their full potential.

The second lesson is that women and girls have to be intentionally included in technological advancements.

 “We need to be deliberate in putting them at the centre of technology and aiding them in accessing and applying it, otherwise we will be left behind,” Alima said. “In fact, technology even has the potential to widen the gender gap if we are not intentional about being inclusive.”

However, she noted that these interventions don’t have to be complex. We’re not talking about coding or bitcoin transactions here; even introducing simple technology can empower women to do business and household work more efficiently, saving time that can be used for education purposes or income generation alternatives.

“We can introduce women to simple technology and support them in applying it. Leaving them behind means we are denying them the opportunity to be included and part of the world’s changing economy,” Alima said.

Thirdly, Alima noticed that the working relationship between government and CSOs is often ineffective.

“We are supposed to be working to achieve a common goal,” she said, “so we need to improve that relationship through collective planning, consultations and engagement processes. She highlighted how vital it is to look for opportunities to integrate initiatives with government institutions, not just work in isolation.

“Governments have the resources to promote development, and sometimes you need to demand help from the state,” she said forcefully. “You are there, and you want to do something to help.”

Lastly, following her experience at CS67, Alima is more convinced than ever that women need to be part of the decision-making processes.

“The training that we have done over the past year with WeCaN on decision making and negotiation is super important,” she said. Attending the high-level event made it clear to Alima just how crucial it is to give women a seat at the negotiation table when discussing issues that directly affect them.

“The WeCaN team have worked to ensure that us, women’s leaders in the dryland areas could access the information needed, could follow the high level decision made, so that when we do advocacy at international fora, we are able to do it right and effectively,” she said, smiling.

In pursuit of that goal, Alima will be attending WeCaN’s first Global Gathering in May 2023, which will bring together 16 WeCaN members from several dryland regions for a unique opportunity to network, build relationships and attend a workshop on advocacy planning. The ultimate aim? To empower women to raise their voices on the global stage, making concrete moves towards climate justice and gender equal future.

Because, as Alima says: “Women shouldn’t be seen as vulnerable. Women and girls need power, and we need to be respected.”

(c)Salahudeen Yussif (SWIDA)