SWAC Secretariat Director Laurent Bossard participated in the weekly radio podcast “Affaires étrangères” (Foreign Affairs) presented by Christine Ockrent on France Culture. In his contribution, Laurent Bossard recalled that Africa is a continent in progress, notably in the field of food security. Read on

In Mali, “the Algiers Process is painfully slow, and peace is not advancing,” noted Jean-Hervé Jezequel, Deputy Project Director for West Africa at the International Crisis Group, offering his analysis of the situation in an interview on the website Sahelien.com. “The setting up of the interim authorities is a significant step towards clarifying the division of responsibilities and power in the north of the country. Beyond local tensions, it is also interesting to note that young Malians have been appointed to important positions (sometimes because they are the only graduates). But this remains a fragile and insufficient step,” he said. Read on

Several decades of gender debates, special events and development goals dedicated to the empowerment of women, add up to only modest improvements on the ground. “What should count, though, is not the number of commitments we make, but the true progress we achieve on the ground […] If men were ready to help women, things would move much faster,” points out Julia Wanjiru from the Sahe land West Africa Club Secretariat (SWAC/OECD) in an article published on the OECD Insights blog. Read on

Since 1985, 8 March has been a public holiday in Burkina Faso. Thomas Sankara had the idea to keep women from going the market on that day, and demand that men do the shopping and cooking instead. This inversion of gender roles was intended to remind men about the realities of the daily grind of their wives, mothers and sisters, and to, above all, allow men to experience those things first-hand. The president of Burkina Faso also left his mark by making himself a tireless advocate for women prostitutes. Read on