Our Africa - a changing continent through women's eyes

While policy frameworks lay out a broad-brush vision for equality, justice and prosperity in the African region, OUR AFRICA engages the detail. With its ear to the ground, the platform profiles fresh thinking, critical analysis and activist initiatives by African women in response to the many forces shaping Africa’s present and future

Morocco's silent revolution

Valentina Bartolucci 17 January 2012
Morocco’s experience of the Arab spring of 2011, including constitutional reform and a parliamentary election, exemplifies the country’s political distinctiveness within the region. The events of 2012 will demonstrate how far hopes of real change can be sustained, says Valentina Bartolucci.

Women in the new Libya: challenges ahead

Kathryn Spellman-Poots 23 December 2011

Will the rights of the women, who participated in the struggles leading to fall of Gaddafi, be put under pressure in the new Libya? Kathryn Spellman-Poots assesses women’s status under Gadaffi and points to the perils ahead.

Egyptian storytelling: a vessel for power

Zainab Magdy 22 December 2011
Writing has come to mean place and presence, and presence gives us power to force those who don't acknowledge our existence to admit that they can hear the sound of our breath, says the young Egyptian writer Zainab Magdy

The second Egyptian revolution: millions of Egyptians have left their homes

Nawal El Saadawi 20 December 2011
The renowned Egyptian feminist writer, activist, physician, and psychiatrist wrote from the eye of the storm on November 25, 2011. This text is published in cooperation with the Norwegian weekly Ny Tid and it's "Voices without borders" project.

Nigeria: women on the outskirts of politics

Lisa Denney 19 December 2011

With only nine women senators representing 54 million women in Nigeria, international support should focus on the broader political cycle and the numerous obstacles to women's political participation, rather than on the election moment, says Lisa Denney

Let’s get real: female sexual pleasure and HIV prevention

Tsitsi B Masvawure 1 December 2011

The dominant HIV intervention response assumes that HIV transmission only occurs in contexts of danger and violation. It is time to take into account young women’s actual sexual experiences and recognise that sex is also a positive and joyous experience, however unsettling this may be for the HIV prevention community, says Tsitsi Masvawure.

The tactical cosmopolitanism of migrants

Loren Landau and Iriann Freemantle 23 November 2011
How do foreign migrants in South Africa's urban estuaries deal with the hostility they regularly encounter? The answer lies in 'tactical cosmopolitanism', say Loren Landau and Iriann Freemantle

South Africa: the values we fought for

Isobel Frye 18 November 2011
Inequality in South Africa has deepened since 1994. Respect for fundamental rights, including socio-economic rights, must be rebuilt - for when rights begin to be seen as hindrances to development and change, people begin to question why they should be observed at all, says Isobel Frye

On the record: women in South Kordofan

Amel Gorani 14 November 2011

The majority of voters in the South Kordofan election in May 2011 were women. In the violence that ensued, women activists who had mobilised the women to vote were targeted, their offices destroyed and all record of their work erased from history. Zeinab Blandia told Amel Gorani their story

"Feast with your enemies" - Dekha Ibrahim Abdi

Scilla Elworthy 11 November 2011

What do I do differently as a result of knowing this great woman? I utterly believe in the power of one local person to transform a violent situation. I know that humiliation is the driver of most incidents of violence, and that respect is the best antidote to humiliation, and I try to apply that. On the weekend of the UK memorial service for Dekha Ibrahim Abdi, Scilla Elworthy remembers her friend

Transforming our woundedness for peace

Dekha Ibrahim Abdi 11 November 2011

" I refuse to be a victim: I am a resource for peace": Dekha Ibrahim Abdi 1964-2011

Egypt: the battle over hope and morale

Hoda Elsadda 2 November 2011
The deliberate attempt to discredit women's rights by associating them with the ex- first lady Suzanne Mubarak is a key challenge for women's rights activists in Egypt, so too is the battle not to surrender to the prophets of doom and gloom, Hoda Elsadda tells Deniz Kandiyoti

Le Cameroun: une forme de violence sournoise en milieu scolaire

Aîssa Ngatansou Doumara 31 October 2011

Dans la Région de l’Extrême-Nord du Cameroun, des pères privent leurs filles de leur droit à l’éducation. Aîssa Ngatansou Doumara décrit le combat quotidien pour changer les comportements qui transforment ces protecteurs en tyran et font des jeunes filles des éternelles inadaptées sociales

Cameroon: a subtle violence in education

Aîssa Ngatansou Doumara 31 October 2011

In the extreme north region of Cameroon, fathers routinely deprive their daughters of the legal right to education. Aîssa Ngatansou Doumara describes the daily struggle to change the attitudes which turn a guardian into a tyrant, and condemn girls to a life of social exclusion

Tunisia: Feminist Fall?

Kristine Goulding 25 October 2011
Nine months after the overthrow of the former president, Tunisia has voted in the first open and fair election in the region. In the final part of a three part article Kristine Goulding argues that if a 'feminist fall' does not come to fruition, it will be because the citizens of Tunisia have shown democratically that feminism is not consummate on their agenda.

With thanks to

New Field Foundation

United Support of Artists for Africa

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Our Africa is edited by Jane Gabriel and Jessica Horn.

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