The African Women's Development Fund (AWDF) on Thursday launched a programme in Accra to support women and other vulnerable groups in society. Dubbed the African Regional Capacity Building Programme, it is a financial funding support programme for women groups, gender-based non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society groups, with funding from the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), an independent capacity-building institution established by the African Development Bank, the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The AWDF is a fund-raising and grant-making initiative, which aims at supporting the work of women's movement in Africa and since it was established in 2001, the AWDF has awarded more than US$5 million in grants to about 400 organisations in 41 African countries. Through the capacity-building programme, the AWDF has been able to provide training and skills building workshops, information dissemination, research and other support to its beneficiaries. At the formal launch, which also coincided with the opening of the programme's first regional capacity-building forum for about 40 women directors, leaders and senior managers of regional and sub-regional women's organisations from Africa, the Programme Officer of ACBF, Ms Leah Chatta-Chipepa, said the aim of the foundation was to address the challenges facing African women organisations in effectively discharging their duties. She said the ACBF's support to AWDF was part of the foundation's effort at enhancing its support to promote women's empowerment and gender equality in Africa. Ms Chatta-Chipepa attributed the continent's development challenges in addressing the implementation of commitments on gender equality to negative trends such as declining economies resulting in shrinking revenue bases which she also said impacted on the financial provisions for badly needed social services. That, she said, were the cumulative effects of HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria, food insecurity, low economic productivity, low levels of education and the upsurge in sexual violence, which, according to her, had left the African woman and girl vulnerable. A Director at the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs (MOWAC), Mrs Marian Tackie, who represented the minister, Hajia Alima Mahama, also applauded the ACBF/AWDF initiative, saying that the support would have great impact on the vulnerable in society. According to her, about 44 percent of Africa's population, most of whom were women, were currently living below the poverty line, adding that women continued to lack access to resources such as land, capital, water and adequate food. She said the vulnerability of women in Africa was the greatest in all spheres of life and it was in this regard that relentless efforts must be geared towards alleviating poverty among women. In her welcome address, the Executive Director of AWDF, Ms Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi, said the programme was going to help address some of the current and future challenges that women faced in their strive towards economic emancipation. Source: Daily Graphic