Girl Power

Today is International Women’s Day, with the theme of “Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures”. The focus is on events that involve, educate and inspire girls to reach their full potential and enjoy equal and empowered futures. Many British diplomatic colleagues around the world will be blogging about this subject from different angles, not least the economic contribution women and girls make. Today I want to touch on development and sport, primarily in Ethiopia.

Development 

Our Department for International Development (DFID) in Ethiopia are working hard to address gender equality here and to promote the rights of women and girls in conflict, emergency and development work.  They are committed to put women and girls at the centre of everything they do

and measure the impact of all their work on women and girls. To that end, they support the following programmes:

• The UN Joint Programme on Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality, which aims to deliver results promoting rights and ending violence;
• The Community Security and Justice Programme, with a focus on addressing gender-based violence, to provide improved access to security and justice for 1.1 million women;
• The Peace and Development Programme, to provide opportunities to promote the rights of women and youth in conflict situations;
• The Programme to End Child Marriage, implemented by the Ministry of Women Children and Youth Affairs over 4 years, which will delay marriage for 200,000 girls in two zones in Amhara region (where 50% of girls are married by age 15);
• Girl Hub Ethiopia, a joint venture between DFID and the Nike Foundation, with a focus on adolescent girls – highlights include ending child marriage, technical and social communications support to NGOs working in humanitarian and emergency situations to ensure the inclusion of adolescent girls and creating a social communications platform that challenges gender stereotypes and the acceptability of violence against women and girls.

DFID also supports the Tracking Trends in Ethiopian Civil Society Programme to monitor the impact of civil society legislation on NGOs, including those which advocate on behalf of women’s rights and provide relevant services – for example to victims of gender based violence.  DFID also supports the work of the British Council to increase the effectiveness of women Parliamentarians and support the capacity of Parliaments to mainstream gender.

Sport 

Did you know that?

• In 1900 for the first the time 19 women competed in the modern Olympic Games in Paris, in tennis, golf and croquet. Britain’s Charlotte Cooper was the first female Olympic Gold medallist, winning the women’s singles tennis;
• The Women in Construction Project, established in 2008, has recruited and placed 266 women directly into jobs on the London 2012 Olympic Park (877 women have worked on the London Olympic Park and 166 on the Athletes’ Village);
• The 2012 London Olympics will see women’s boxing debut as an Olympic event, an increase in the number of women competing in wrestling and in Canoeing a Women’s K1 200m event instead of the Men’s C2 500m event;
• Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson is Britain’s greatest Paralympian, with 16 Paralympic medals, 11 golds, 6 London marathon wins and 30 world records (she is also vice-President of the Women’s Sports Foundation and has chaired a commission to investigate gender inequalities in sport);
• One of London 2012’s landmark buildings is the Aquatic Centre, designed by London-based architect, Zaha Hadid (in 2004, she became the first woman to receive the Pritzker Prize – the Nobel of the architecture world);
• The British women’s basketball team will make its debut at London 2012 (the team has made huge progress over the last few years, achieving the second round place in EuroBasket 2011);
• Britain is hoping for 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Golds from high performing British female athletes such as Jessica Ennis (Hepthalon), Stefanie Reid (Track and Field) and Shelly Wood (wheel chair racing).

Lord Coe has commented: “I am delighted that London 2012 will take its place in the Olympic tradition of advancing women in sport”.

Ethiopian Women Athletes

Derartu Tulu is probably the greatest female athlete from Ethiopia. In 1992, aged 20, she became the first black African woman to win an Olympic Gold medal when she flew past Elana Meyer at the bell to win the 10,000 metres.  In 2000 in Sydney she won her second Gold – the first race in which the first six women all broke the Olympic record. That triumph made her the only woman ever to win two Olympic Gold medals at distances over 1,500m.

Her subsequent transition to the marathon was rewarded with victories in the London and Tokyo Marathons in 2001. She also won the Portugal Half Marathon in 2000 and 2003 and the Lisbon Half Marathon in 2003.

In 2009, aged 37, she won the New York City Marathon – defeating other sporting heroines such as Paula Radcliffe, Lyudmila Petrova and Salina Kosgei. Derartu is an inspiration to many women, especially in Africa.

This year Ethiopia will send many female runners and one female swimmer to London 2012.