The Institute for Global Health and Development (IGHD) has raised concerns that some African countries are not addressing gender equality.
Magda Robalo the President and Co-Founder of IGHD has emphasized the need to prioritize gender equality as a means of enabling women compete on an equal platform as their male counterparts.
According to Magda African countries also need to prioritize women’s health as this will improve their productivity as it aids in addressing maternal mortality among women.
“Women’s health is critical and important, children’s health is important, men’s health is important,” Magda said.
She added that overall investing in health is the best buy economies can do in the present and in the future in particularly when they make gender equality work especially for women.
“When we have healthy women, we have societies that thrive. Women can work, they can raise their families, they can contribute to the economy of a country in a more productive way, they can live productive lives and that is what we need to be helping government to understand and invest in,” she noted.
She underscored the need or proper investment in this area as this will help various sectors of the economy in African countries.
“That is how we are going to have more stable societies that can thrive and enjoy the opportunities of prosperity for all their citizens.”
However, Magda noted, “Africa has made great progress in reducing maternal and child mortality, but we seem to be going backward in some countries where child mortality is rising again. We still have a lot of work to do in that area and gender equality,” she said.
