Kinshasa, April 30th, 2025 (CPA) – The activities of the Gender Thematic Group (GTG) plenary session were launched on Tuesday in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), at a ceremony organized by the Ministry in charge of Gender in collaboration with UN Women.
‘On the occasion of the launch of the gender theme plenary session, I invite all the members to work towards the effective implementation of this government programme framework. I hope that the discussions at this plenary session will be constructive and lead to concrete recommendations’, said Esther Kamwanya, Secretary General for Gender, Family and Children, representing the Minister for Gender who is unable to attend. ‘Coordination of gender sector activities is not limited to the national level, but must also extend to the provinces’, she added.
According to the Gender Minister’s representative, the gender thematic group will have to operate in all 26 of the country’s provinces. However, to date, only 13 provinces are covered. Setting up and running the group at provincial level cannot succeed without the involvement of technical and financial partners. ‘Your presence on the ground, your expertise, your strong technical support for better coordination and greater effectiveness of our actions in the gender sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo’, she said. Nadège Beauvile, head of the UN-WOMEN Coordination Unit, praised the efforts of the Ministry of Gender for its successive organization of the forum of provincial gender ministers and its participation in the 69th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women last March in New York. ‘This initiative demonstrates a strong commitment at national and international level. We also want to highlight the decisive role played by women’s civil society organizations, which are real actors, the sentinels of social justice and the voice of women who are often invisible, but essential to the transformation of our societies’, she said.
‘The Beijing 30 evaluation process reminds us that we must move from commitment to results. This means increasing funding dedicated to gender equality, strengthening the leadership of women, especially young women, and of local women’s civil society organizations, and tackling the multiple and structural discrimination against women’, she added, recalling the role of the UN Women mandate. ‘UN Women’s mandate is based on two key strategic pillars: the normative role, which aims to support the effective implementation of international norms and standards on gender equality, and the coordinating role, which aims to strengthen the coherence and effectiveness of the actions of the United Nations system and its partners in this area’, she explained.
The re-launching of the GTG, an opportunity for gender equality
Ms Beauvile also pointed out that the re-launching of the gender theme group represents an opportunity to place gender equality at the heart of public policies and national collective action. ‘The relaunch of the GTG is a major strategic opportunity to place the global principles of gender equality at the heart of public policy and national collective action’, she said.
The head of the UN-WOMEN Coordination Unit listed 3 (three) objectives that will guide actions, namely: aligning national action with international commitments; strengthening inclusive and effective coordination within the group; and supporting four priority sub-groups, including the fight against sexual and gender-based violence; gender equality and women’s legal status; economic empowerment of women; and women’s political participation and public leadership.
‘We need to increase synergies between government players, civil society organizations (CSOs) and technical and financial partners’, she said, before welcoming the re-launching of this essential forum which, since its creation in 2009, has brought together national and international stakeholders around a common objective, with the aim of advancing equality between women and men in the DRC. ‘This plenary session marks the resumption of high-level consultations after two years of logistical and institutional challenges. We must seize this opportunity to reinvigorate our coordination, share our progress and together identify the leverage needed to meet the needs of women and girls’, said Ms Beauvile.
The GTG, a response to the evaluation of the national gender equality plan
Florence Boloko, coordinator of the Gender Thematic Group plenary session, said that the framework was a response to the requirements of the national strategic plan for gender equality.
‘This framework meets the requirements of implementing the monitoring and evaluation of the national strategic and development plan for gender equality, a programmatic framework that brings together all the actions of the Congolese government and its development partners’, she said.
She went on to say that ‘after a two-year hiatus, we are meeting again around this common table to motivate our shared commitment to gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. Your massive presence today is eloquent proof of the collective will re-launch this dynamic, strengthen synergy and ensure cohesion in our actions’, she added.
‘This meeting marks an important stage in the implementation of the actions of our consultation framework, and I am convinced that together, through constructive dialogue, we can identify common strategic orientations to advance national gender priorities in the DRC’, she emphasised. According to Ms Boloko, the GTG is the response to the many challenges raised by the implementation of the gender equality policy and programme. It is a reminder of the coherent and concerted coordination mechanism, but the dispersal of initiatives and irregularities in exchanges can only reduce the impact of the efforts made.
The GTG’s priorities
Ms Boloko also reiterated the priorities of the Gender Working Group, starting with the re-launching of its activities. ‘The GTG’s priorities are as follows: to ensure the regularity of plenary sessions and meetings of the gender sub-groups in order to guarantee ongoing monitoring, sustained exchanges and better action planning; to strengthen collaboration with the provinces by setting up a mechanism for monitoring joint actions defined between the national and provincial levels; and to continue setting up and revitalizing provincial gender working groups in order to turn the consultation framework into a national structure capable of supporting provincial development plans’, she explained. She added that the meeting was part of efforts to push forward the national gender equality agenda in the DRC.
A number of activities were organized during the meeting, including a report on the Forum to revitalize the sub-working groups, an overview of the sub-working groups’ current situation and prospects, and a brief presentation of the DRC’s participation in the 69th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CWS69) in New York. There was also a presentation of the roadmap for the 2nd edition of the forum and the mapping of women’s civil society organizations (OFSC) in the DRC, as well as the roadmap for the 7th edition of the forum of ministers and heads of provincial divisions in charge of gender, and fruitful exchanges between participants and speakers.