NEPAD Appoints an Advisor on Gender and Civil Society Organizations.

The NEPAD Secretariat is pleased to announce the creation of the Office of Gender and Civil Society Organizations (CSO) at the Secretariat. This office has been created as a direct response to recommendations for an institutional mechanism to deal with gender and CSO matters received by the NEPAD Secretariat from different stakeholders and experts. The creation of this office is a culmination of a series of consultations and engagements between the NEPAD Secretariat and the stakeholders which started in 2002 and climaxed at the Maputo AU Summit in 2003. The creation of this office is also a commitment by the Secretariat to gender issues and a demonstration of the Secretariats desire to actively involve CSOs in the implementation process, as NEPAD projects move into the implementation mode.

The NEPAD Secretariat is also pleased to announce the appointment of Ms Litha Musyimi-Ogana to head this office. Ms Musyimi-Ogana is an accomplished gender and civil society leader with extensive knowledge and expertise in this area. She brings to the NEPAD Secretariat over 20 years knowledge and expertise in development work as well as across-sector experience, having worked in the public service, private and civil society sectors. Ms Musyimi-Ogana has been in the forefront in advocating for economically and socially just engendered government policies and played a key advocacy role in influencing government policy nationally, regionally and internationally including the AU, NEPAD and the United Nations (UN).

Before joining NEPAD, she was the Regional Director of the African Center for Empowerment, Gender and Advocacy (AC-EGA) and also served as a Senior Advisor Gender and Governance with the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) based in New York. She has previously worked for the Ministry of Finance in Kenya and headed a national NGO among others.