Douala (Cameroon), 18 March 2013 – Was the venue of the thematic day on gender equality within COMIFAC. The workshop was facilitated by Mrs. Hélène Lagacé, an expert in gender equality issues, and jointly organized by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the CEFDHAC sub-regional Steering Committee, the REFADD Regional Coordination, the COMIFAC Ad hoc Gender Committee, and a group of technical experts from Canada.

The tone of this thematic day, which attracted close to 200 participants, was set by the introductory remarks made by Facilitator of the day, Hélène Lagacé, a consultant with CADI, the speech of the representative of the ex-facilitators’ consortium Lauren Ziegler, Head of the United States Delegation and the Opening speech delivered by the COMIFAC Executive Secretary, His Excellency Raymond Mbitikon.

The thematic day served as an opportunity to help develop a common vision on gender equality, to share gender-related success factors in development interventions through the sharing of five real-life stories and finally, to exchange preliminary proposals on a draft gender strategy COMIFAC intends to formulate. The preliminary proposals were drawn from discussions conducted in February 2013 with members of the COMIFAC Ad hoc gender committee (CAG) on the one hand and with the COMIFAC Executive Secretariat, its experts and partners on the other hand.

The discussions of the thematic day further confirmed, based on issues identified in the area gender mainstreaming within COMIFAC, the relevance of the strategic domains and actions presented in the draft gender strategy, namely 1) the creation of an enabling environment and a common vision for gender mainstreaming and related priorities within COMIFAC and 2) the need to bring a gender-sensitive dimension to programming and build stakeholders’ capacities, both at regional and national level.

Lastly, following discussions with the CAG and when presenting the conclusions of the thematic day at the Meeting of Partners, emphasis was laid on CAG’s contribution to the drafting of a proposal to renew its mandate in order to strengthen its role within COMIFAC, and also its role in the development an action plan for the next 6 months, with a view to completing the elaboration of a gender strategy to be submitted for adoption to the COMIFAC Council of Ministers. The plan included a national consultation process aimed at capturing national realities within the COMIFAC sphere.

The main recommendations and summaries formulated and restituted by the Regional Coordinator of REFADD are compiled in the Document on the Main Conclusions of the CBFP Thematic Day.

Kindly download the conclusions of the CBFP Gender Thematic Day.

Please Download the complete Documents of the CBFP Thematic Day