By Foday Moriba Conteh
During a snap Press Conference held on the 1st July 2022 at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Freetown, the Assistant Secretary General (ASG) of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director (DED) of UN Women ,Asa Regner and Regional Director for West and Central Africa UN Women, Oulimata Sarr re-affirmed UN Women’s support towards the advancement of gender equality, empowerment of women and girls with a view to furthering advocacy and partnership in line with the development agenda of Sierra Leone and the sustainable Development Goals.
Speaking to journalists, the Regional Director of UN Women for West and Central Africa, Oulimata Sarr, revealed that the media plays critical roles through the work that they do further maintaining that the media needs to amplify messages of UN Women in order to help them change narratives.
She furthered that in order to do that, they need to work closely with the media and to ensure that their office in Sierra Leone shares with the media information, data and advocacy papers needed to play critical roles in enhancing Gender Equality and Women Empowerment.
Madam Oulimata noted that Gender Equality could be achieved through partnership underscoring the importance of major stakeholders in society forming collaborations maintaining how it could not be reasonable to wait for one hundred, and two hundred years to attain Gender Equality and Women Empowerment.
On her part, the Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women, Asa Regner, highlighted meeting with the President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, Brigadier (Retired) Dr. Julius Maada Bio, the Vice President Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh, the Speaker of Parliament Dr. Abass Bundu, officials of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Gender and Children’s Affairs, and Finance, members of the Female Parliamentary Caucus and the Statistician-General of Statistics Sierra Leone.
She disclosed also meeting with members of the Diplomatic Corps, and Heads of International Financial Institutions (IFI), development partners, Civil Society Organizations, Women and Youth groups in Sierra Leone.
Asa Regner, mentioned paying a courtesy call on the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Sierra Leone, Dr. Babatunde Ahonsi, attending a special United Nations Country Team meeting, and a host of town hall styled engagements with the UN Women team in the country.
She explained how they have got the views of all the aforementioned stakeholders and learnt about the Gender Equality bill as well as other related issues bordering around Sexual and Gender Based Violence, the gains made and challenges faced disclosing how they are ready to work with State and Non-State actors to advance the causes of women in the country and strengthen the rights of children.
She concluded by re-affirming the UN Women’s support towards the advancement of gender equality and empowerment of women and girls with a view to promote or advance advocacy and partnership in line with the development agenda of Sierra Leone and the Sustainable Development Goals.
