The Durban University of Technology (DUT) Gender Justice, Health and Human Development and Gender Responsive Resilience in Policy and Practice (GRRIPP Africa) recently held a Final Event Colloquium in Pretoria.
The objective of the colloquium was to extract crucial learnings from the grantee partners located in Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Uganda, and South Sudan to share knowledge and assess the extent of DUT’s impact for gender positive social outcomes.
A key focus of the occasion was to mark the end of a four-year global collaboration between Durban University of Technology’s Gender Justice, Health and Human Development Office, UK Research and Innovation, Global Challenges Research Fund, and University College London.
The three-day engagement was comprised of internal GRRIPP network activities, engagements with grantees and strategic stakeholders, panel discussions, a gala dinner, and a final dissemination event to showcase its deliverables.
Regional Advisory Council Chair, Advocate Michelle Odayan, chaired the proceedings of the inaugural day. Grantees delivered project impact presentations, sharing their experiences from collaborating with GRRIPP Africa and giving context to their milestones. Each presenter also discussed their project shortfalls, and how these can be mitigated to empower grassroots organisations.
This was followed by a panel discussion focusing on “Community/Partner/Stakeholder Perceptions of Impact”, where one representative from each project contributed to the topic. The activities ended with a gala dinner, where Wits University’s Director for Transformation, Bernadette Johnson, joined as the keynote speaker.
The second day was chaired by RAC member, PravinMakan-Lakha, who reflected on the previous day’s activities before giving an outline of the day. We had the pleasure of a discussion with African Union Development Agency-NEPAD Head of Youth, Gender, and Women’s Empowerment, Jessica Annor. Her presentation was titled “Intersectional Approaches to Gender and Development”, where she delved into how the continental organisation practices intersectional development through their initiatives. She put it to the audience that intersectionality and feminism are not part of AUDA’s institutional lexicon, as the organisation prefers to position itself as champions of gender and women’s empowerment.
“You won’t see the word feminism or patriarchy in any of the African Union’s documents, even though they are spoken about openly. These concepts are divisive because they are viewed as Western ideology being imposed on Africans. Our culture has always protected the dignity of women-we don’t need to be taught by outsiders who don’t have lived experience,” she elaborated.
Ms Annor’s presentation was received with adulation from attendees, especially grantees who now possess a first-hand account of how they can collaborate with the organisation based on shared objectives.
The latter part of the day was a panel discussion titled “Future Perspectives – A discussion and analysis on what different role players see as necessary for strengthening Gender Responsive Resilience”. Participants were GRRIPP Africa grantee representative, Maria Matui from Gender and Climate Change Tanzania Coalition, Prof Pablo Vega, Co-Principal Investigator and Project Lead for GRRIPP Latin America and the Caribbean Region, Prof Maureen Fordham, Principal Investigator GRRIPP Global, and Prof Cheryl Potgieter, GRRIPP Africa Project Lead.
The highlight of day three was a panel discussion titled “Gender Based Violence Beyond the “Superficial “Interventions: Asking Different Questions & Contextualising Real Change across the African Continent.” In it, Prof Cheryl Potgieter was in conversation with Advocate Michelle Odayan (GRRIPP Africa RAC Chair), Omogolo Taunyane-Mnguni (GRRIPP Africa Communications Lead), Jackie Osuna (FIDA Uganda), Stayah Fombe (Mwanasikana Wanhasi), and Dr Charity Chenga (Echoes of Humanities). The intention of the panel was to locate gender-based violence within the African context, and interrogate the factors behind it’s increasing trends in communities.
In conclusion, the GRRIPP Africa Final Event Colloquium was a success in many ways as it the first time that all grantees were convened, enabling them to collaborate, glean crucial lessons from each other, and co-create in finding solutions based on contextual application of indigenous knowledge. All attendees benefitted from the engagement, remarking on the quality of submissions and level of engagement from participants, especially grantees. Through the event, research and praxis on intersectional gender responsiveness coalesced to introduce a new language for development practitioners and scholars to define contemporary histories. Participants revisited the application, relevance, and impact of their knowledge through a decolonial and educational perspective.
Pictured: Professor Cheryl Potgieter (GRRIPP Africa Project Lead) with grantee partners and beneficiaries.
Omogolo Tumelo Onalenna Taunyane-Mnguni
