Promoting basic education for women and girls ... - library.unesco-ii...

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students, regular open forum on gender issues; (c)
grants to bachelor’s and masterss degree students
projects on gender-related topics; and (d) lob-
bying of academic departments to integrate gender
into their programmes.
ifor
Challenges: limited capacity, due to lack of full-time staff
and high staff turnover.
Conclusions and major lessons
he most interesting point about the Ethiopian expe-
T
rience is the government’s strong commitment to
women and gender issues, as seen in the prominence
given to these issues in the country’s Constitution, in the
development of a National Policy on Ethiopian Women,
and in entrusting the co-ordination of women-in-develop-
programmes to the Office of the Prime Minister.
Related to this is the fact that women’s and girls’
education is being promoted as an integral part of the
iment nation’s development agenda, hence the full integration
of women-in-development issues into the work and pro-
grammes of all sectoral departments and at all levels of
government.
Ethiopia has also come up with an ambitious co-ordi-
nation mechanism, which seeks to consolidate the efforts
of all partners, in different places and at different levels.
all, Ethiopia has had a long-serving Woman
Minister of Education, who is a founding member of FAWE
(Forum for African Women Educationalists) and an activist
tAbove
on girls’ and women’s education.
This situation has certainly worked in favour of
Women’s and Girls’ Education, in that it has contributed to:
E thiopia
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