National Women's Forum

The National Women’s Rights Forum was organized by Setaweet and supported by FES. It brought together different Women’s Rights Organisations from across the whole country, individual women’s rights activists, and different government stakeholders with the view to create a lasting and powerful collaboration between stakeholders with the aspiration to further gender justice and women’s rights in Ethiopia. It was designed as a platform to raise issues that are stated on the “Women’s Manifesto” developed by the “Network of Ethiopian Women’s Associations” (NEWA).

The aim of this conference was to develop a common agenda among women’s rights organizations, and vis-a-vis conflict resolution and peace-building efforts in particular, strengthening the resolve as well as the capacity of the sector, to contribute to peace-building efforts and to demand accountability for the rising trends in gender-based violence with discussions. In the two days conference, over 50 participants worked and discussed on finding a well-articulated strategic plan for future engagements in the above-mentioned processes. It was also designed to identify subjects where different women’s rights organizations would wish to increase their cooperation, as a forum for experience-sharing on success-stories regarding advocacy campaigns and draw lessons-learned from challenges different organisations faced. It also served to jointly built-upon achievements and agree on a common way forward on certain issues.