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

Tunisia: Arab Spring, Islamist Summer

Kristine Goulding 25 October 2011
Tunisia has voted in the first open and fair election in the region. In part two of a three part article Kristine Goulding warns against framing Islamism in direct opposition to women's rights. The Arab Spring redefined the roles of both women and the Islamist al-Nahda, and the two cannot be seen as mutually exclusive

Tunisia: Women's winter of discontent

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 part one of a three part article Kristine Goulding asks: Is a Tunisian feminist fall, driven by local, national and international support, possible? Or will countervailing forces of politics, social pressure and religion prevail?

Pan-Africanising women’s philanthropy: anatomy of an emerging social movement

Jackie Copeland-Carson 18 October 2011

The traditional noblesse oblige notion of philanthropy as giving by a wealthy, more privileged class to a poor, less privileged class has been turned on its head. Jackie Copeland-Carson reports on a movement that is democratising philanthropy

Lessons of the hummingbird

Jessica Horn 14 October 2011

In the company of souls departed and souls vibrantly alive, Jessica Horn reflects on the significance of the lives of Nobel laureates Leymah Gbowee and the late Wangari Maathai, and the transgressive power of African women on a mission.

فلتكن قوتنا مجيدة": صانعات سلام من جنوب العالم "

ندى مصطفى محمد على 11 October 2011
" ان هذه الجائزة تشمل الربيع العربى أيضا، و لكن ذلك يتم فى سياق معين هو ان أى فشل فى ضمان مشاركة النساء فى الثورة و الديمقراطيات الجديدة سيعنى انه لن تكون هناك ديمقراطية." ثوربيورن ياغلاند. رئيس لجنة جائزة نوبل للسلام

"Mighty be our powers": peaceful women and the global south

Nada Mustafa Ali 10 October 2011
“We have included the Arab Spring in this prize, but we have put it in a particular context. Namely, if one fails to include the women in the revolution and the new democracies, there will be no democracy.” Thorbjoern Jagland, chair of the Nobel Prize Committee

Women Nobel Peace Laureates congratulate three new women Laureates

openDemocracy 50.50 8 October 2011

The women Peace Laureates of the Nobel Women’s Initiative—Jody Williams (USA), Shirin Ebadi (Iran), Mairead Maguire (Ireland) and Rigoberta Menchú Tum (Guatemala)—have sent letters of congratulation to the three women joining them as Nobel Peace Laureates.

Professor Wangari Maathai remembered

openDemocracy 50.50 28 September 2011

Following the death of Professor Wangari Maathai, noted activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, we remember her through her own words and those of her fellow Nobel Peace Laureates.

African leadership for a new generation: reflections on the North African revolutions

Rawia M Tawfik Amer 23 September 2011
The young revolutionaries in North Africa face two challenges: the attempt by incumbent regimes to co-opt them and the attempt by western governments to influence them. For the Pan-Africanist movement to be sustainable it has to be owned by the people, says Rawia Amer

African leadership and the avoidance of responsibility

Bertha Kadenyi Amisi 22 September 2011

The failure of African leaders to implement national plans and mechanisms in time to prevent drought from leading to famine, is morally repugnant and painful beyond words, says Bertha Amisi

Understanding contemporary violence in Central Africa: militarism, race, and gender

Patricia Daley 20 September 2011

It is time to challenge the conventional explanations of gender based violence. Patricia Daley argues that it can only be understood in association with contemporary geo-economic forces and the Central African experience of modernity

Burkina Faso: " Restons Debout "

Mariamé Touré Ouattara 19 September 2011

Les agricultrices du Burkina Faso sont en train de s’organiser pour dénoncer les politiques agricoles erronées adoptées par l’Etat. Définies davantage pour répondre aux impératifs des grandes puissances mondiales, ces politiques ont omis de prendre en considération les besoins et les aspirations de celles qui nourrissent le Burkina Faso, aggravant ainsi la faim, dit Mariamé Touré Ouattara

Burkina Faso: "Let us remain standing"

Mariamé Touré Ouattara. 19 September 2011

Women farmers in Burkina Faso are organising to denounce the misguided agricultural policies adopted by the state. Responding overwhelmingly to international demands, such policies have failed to take into account the need, knowledge and aspirations of those who feed the population, and hunger is rising, says Mariamé Touré Ouattara.

Clearing ground: planting the seeds of Our Africa

Jessica Horn 19 September 2011

On the launch of Our Africa, co-editor Jessica Horn reflects on the lives of two formidable Africans, Wambui Otieno Mbugua and Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, and the intellectual and political ground opened by African women.

Eritrea: the politics of food security

Selam Kidane 5 September 2011
Eritrea’s people are sharing in the food hardships of the wider region. But their government’s authoritarian rule is intent on keeping their fate from wider view, says Selam Kidane.

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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