Addis Ababa — The African Union Fee (AUC) marked Worldwide Girls’s Day 2026 by spotlighting the usually unseen contributions of girls who maintain the continent’s premier multilateral establishment operating.
Held on the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, the occasion was organized by the Girls, Gender and Youth Directorate (WGYD) below the theme “Honoring Girls of the African Union: Voices, Work and Neighborhood.”
The commemoration highlighted girls working throughout the Fee, from management roles to operational workers whose efforts maintain the establishment’s every day features.
Opening the ceremony, AUC Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf referred to as for a shift in how girls’s roles are acknowledged inside the Union and throughout the continent.
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“Each girl ought to really feel valued and supported,” Youssouf stated, stressing that ladies’s development is carefully tied to the success of the AU itself.
He linked girls’s empowerment to the continental improvement blueprint Agenda 2063, noting that ladies’s management stays important to advancing Africa’s peace and improvement priorities.
On her half, AUC Deputy Chairperson Selma Haddadi paid tribute to the “founding moms” of the African Union whereas emphasizing the very important position performed by girls whose work is never seen in high-level conferences.
“The message in the present day is to honor these we don’t essentially see within the assembly rooms, however who’re right here on daily basis to make our work occur in the perfect situations attainable,” Haddadi stated.
“They’re the engine that drives this society, working shoulder to shoulder with males. With the contribution of African girls, Agenda 2063, the Africa we wish…turns into the Africa we make.”
The occasion additionally featured testimonies from girls engaged on the AU’s operational entrance traces.
Santa Belew, a ticket officer on the Fee, highlighted the significance of alternative in unlocking girls’s potential.
“Alternative is step one,” she stated, noting that many ladies possess abilities that may flourish when given the prospect.
Meron Adinew, group chief of the Ethiopian Airways workplace on the AU headquarters, referred to as for stronger gender parity in senior management.
“If girls are given the identical alternatives in schooling and employment as males, they’ll play an important position in management and decision-making,” she stated.
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Addressing younger girls, Adinew inspired them to imagine of their potential and pursue schooling as a pathway to management. “We will do it. Imagine in your self, pursue schooling, and at all times attempt to shine,” she added.
The African Union Fee serves as the chief department and secretariat of the African Union.
By way of the Girls, Gender and Youth Directorate, the Fee continues to advance insurance policies selling gender equality and ladies’s empowerment throughout the continent, according to commitments below the African Constitution on Human and Peoples’ Rights.