African Women’s Collaborative For Healthy Food Systems Seeks Young Women For Steering Committee

By Wallace Mawire

The African Women’s Collaborative for Healthy Food Systems, a Pan-African initiative led by outstanding African peasant and indigenous women  is  seeking committed and impact-driven young women leaders to join its steering committee and contribute to the strong, cohesive leadership of the collaborative.

According to Ofure Odibeli, Outreach and Communications Manager for the African Women’s Collaborative for Healthy Food Systems, candidates being sought should have a passion and interest to serve as a volunteer member of a non-profit steering committee dedicated to addressing the marginalization of indigenous, pastoralist and peasant women across Africa through a shared agenda of food sovereignty, healthy food systems and human rights.

“We have three new openings and welcome   expressions of interest to join this dynamic team, with an average of 3 to 6 hours per month,” Odibeli said.

Applicants are sought from  peasant or indigenous young woman leaders actively involved in community-based food systems and agro-ecological practices, a board member or an active leader of a young women's rights and/or farming organization with a minimum of 500 women members for an emerging organization (under 5 years) or a minimum of 1000 women members for an established organization (5 years or above),be 18-35 years old,have reliable access to the internet and cell phone and able to communicate effectively,including speaking, reading and writing  in English or French.

Odibeli said that they encourage all qualified individuals to apply and  preference will be given to young women leaders from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa.

The African Women’s Collaborative for Healthy Food Systems (the Collaborative) arose in 2017 from a collective concern about rural women’s rights and food quality combined with a commitment to economic and gender justice.

The Collaborative addresses the marginalisation of indigenous, pastoralist and peasant women across the continent through a shared agenda of food sovereignty, healthy food systems and human rights, including the right to have equal access to and control over land, seeds, property and natural resources, to contribute to economic growth, and to have representation at regional, national and continental levels.

The Collaborative is Pan-African initiative led by outstanding African rural women. It has a Steering Committee, a Management Group, a Finance Committee, Advisors, and a technical support team.

The structure of the Collaborative is based on collaboration, joint decision making and joint accountability with the aim of combining knowledge, experience and influence, and drawing upon each member’s access to her own membership organization and networks.

The Collaborative is fiscally sponsored by FJC in New York. The Steering Committee may consist of 5 to 15 people from up to 15 countries in 5 regions (North, South, East, West, and Central Africa).

Membership of the Steering Committee must reflect diversity of nationality, race, age, gender, language, culture, and religion.

The current Steering Committee is composed of six peasant and indigenous women farmers from Burkina Faso, Kenya, Senegal, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Zambia (see Annex 1 for list of current Steering Committee members).

Each Steering Committee member leads her own registered organization with several thousand women members. All are active leaders in food sovereignty movements in East, West and Southern Africa, have significant roles on pan-African and global platforms and share their knowledge with UN agencies and international NGOS as well as with regional networks and organisations.

As one of its strategic priorities for 2022-2023, the Collaborative aims to expand the Steering Committee with three young women leaders, who will bring a new dynamic to the Collaborative and at the same time engage with other Steering Committee members and learn from the Collaborative’s work.

They will enrich the Collaborative not only with their experience and knowledge, but with a regional perspective that is deeply rooted in peasant and indigenous cultures.

The mission and vision of the  Collaborative’s is that African people and Mother Earth are nourished, healthy and enjoying a good life.

Its mission is to promote and nurture a way of life that respects, takes care of and restores Mother Earth and her resources while benefiting African people and their communities.

The Collaborative promotes healthy food systems that are grounded in feminist principles and that improve livelihoods for peasant and indigenous women across Africa.

The Collaborative’s focus is to highlight and change the minimal participation of peasant and indigenous women in decision-making processes within the many African farmer organisations, NGOs and CBOs that are advocating for agroecology, seed saving and food sovereignty, as well as from African feminist fora; the lack of respect for their knowledge and expertise as practitioners in all aspects of the food system  and the lack of cohesion between existing broad-based women’s movements campaigning for environmental justice, women’s rights and healthy food systems. Its strategy is to combine knowledge, experience and local capacity and a broad base in both Francophone and Anglophone regions of Africa.