First Lady Jeannette Kagame(L) and her Kenyan counterpart today
Rwanda’s First Lady Jeannette Kagame today attended the International Women’s Day celebration in Nairobi, Kenya calling to address global indifferences towards issues of sustainability and climate change mitigation.
Mrs. Kagame said that women have been victims of gender inequality and this has also been seen in grim figures of gender divide and with emerging threats as climate change and resource depletion women have been the first in the causality line.
For instance; figures show that it will take more than 135 years (until 2157) to close the gender gap.
Moreover, women make 70% of the world’s poor and this renders them vulnerable to the consequences of humanitarian disasters making. In other figures, women make 80% of persons displaced by climate change.
Mrs Kagame said that therefore, to stand aside as resources are misrouted and depleted and as natural disasters gain frequency is at best to accept a fate that reaps the majority of the world’s women from their homes and deny them their dignity.
“We must address the global indifference towards the issue of sustainability and climate change mitigation,” Mrs Kagame said.
First Lady Jeannette Kagame speaking to Kenya’s President, Uhuru Kenyatta
She noted that passivity has poisoned the world to keep a blind eye and denying justice to a young generation and population that is eminently threatened to extinction by climate change but good examples of environment heroes and initiatives should be an example that this can be changed.
For example; Mrs Kagame named Kenya’s Wangari Mathai- the first African woman to win Nobel Peace Prize and advocated for environmental responsibility and women’s rights; whose life works, the First Lady of Rwanda said should be an instance to enable all to be decisive in honor of persons who have embarked on the Green Mission.
Mrs Kagame also said that change in Africa’s Green Mission is possible looking at the results recorded since the establishment of the Rwanda Green Fund- which has created over 176,000 green jobs impacting positively on welfare of both men and women in Rwanda with 60% jobs to the latter gender.
“The numbers are beyond encouraging…These figures offer irrefutable proof that mitigation, sustainability and gender equality are interdependent,” the First Lady said.
With this, Mrs Kagame called on every youth, organization, institution or governmental body that desires a bright future should ensure that sustainability is attained by alleviating the burden put on women.
Mrs. Kagame joined Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and First Lady Margaret Kenyatta at the Kenya School of Government (KSG-Kabete) where women of all walks of life danced and celebrated the International Women’s Day in style.
As part of this celebration, Mrs. Margaret Kenyatta inaugurated the Margaret Kenyatta Institute for Gender and Social Development, in collaboration between Beyond Zero and the Kenya School of Government.
