Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and Girl Effect, with the Government of Rwanda, today announced plans to create widespread and sustained demand for immunisation and other health services among girls and women in Rwanda.
Gavi – an international public-private partnership focused on increasing access to immunisation in the world’s poorest countries – and Girl Effect – an international non-profit using digital media to inspire and equip girls to make positive choices – have partnered to collaborate with the Government of Rwanda to sustain and improve immunisation coverage in the country.
“For the last three years, we have partnered with Girl Effect to increase awareness about the benefits of HPV vaccination, enhance agency of young girls, empower communities to take the right decisions to promote good health and generate evidence on attitudes to immunisation,” said Anuradha Gupta, Deputy CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. “This new phase of our partnership will build on these initiatives, bring more intensive focus on gendered barriers to immunisation and ensure that no child is deprived of life-saving vaccines.”

Eradicating extreme poverty and reducing inequality remain some of Africa’s biggest challenges which the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is trying to help member States tackle through various policy recommendations and actions.
This was said Thursday by Thokozile Ruzvidzo, Director of the Gender, Poverty and Social Policy Division at the ECA, in remarks to the third session of the committee on gender, poverty and social policy.
The committee is meeting for the next two days to look into the core role of the newly-formed Division that was reformulated to address gender, poverty and social policy as key African priorities.
The Division is home to sub-programmes that seek to address emerging issues impacting the lives of African women and girls, promote and support member States in their work to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment; and contribute to Africa achieving inclusive and equitable sustainable human and social development.
“Despite strides the continent has made in reducing the incidence of poverty, under the current trajectory, it is unlikely that extreme poverty will be eradicated by 2030,” said Ruzvidzo.
Global extreme poverty is predominantly concentrated in Africa, and is declining much slower in the region compared to the rest of the world.
Particularly relevant to the new priorities of the Division is urbanization, the ECA Director said.