PanAfrican Centre for Gender, Peace and Development
The PanAfrican Centre for Gender, Peace and Development was established by Femmes Africa Solidarité (FAS) to provide training and research in peacebuilding and development issues, with an emphasis on gender. The programme is targeted at peacebuilding practitioners, women entrepreneurs and social development campaigners from all parts of Africa.

The Centre's first training module, "Gender and Peacebuilding" (2006) was developed with the support of the University for Peace (UPEACE) whose regional programmes are based in Addis Ababa. It is hoped that this partnership will lead to the creation of a Master degree programme in Gender and Peacebuilding, which will be in partnership with the University of Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar.

Programmes on "Economic Empowerment and Development" and "Leadership and Governance" will be developed in partnership with the Instituto de Empresa in Spain.

Furthermore, FAS will organize the second edition of the Gender Forum and Award in May 2007.

Gender is My Agenda campaign
From Solemn Declaration to Solemn implementation

Intro
Officially launched at the Banjul Conference, in June 2006, the Gender is My Agenda Campaign is a network of women’s organisations, which aims to disseminate the Solemn Declaration to a wider audience, whilst monitoring, evaluating and reporting on its implementation.

Brief history
The role of the African Union

• At its Third Ordinary Session (in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 6-8 July 2004), the African Union adopted the Solemn Declaration, which affirmed the commitment of member-states to the task of mainstreaming gender into its approach to issues of health, human rights, education, economic development, governance and peace and security. This was the first time a continental organization took ownership of gender mainstreaming at the highest level, prioritizing issues such HIV/AIDS; the recruitment of child soldiers; and the guaranteeing of women’s ownership of land and inheritance rights.

The role of the Women’s organizations

• Following the adoption of the Solemn Declaration, women’s civil societies assembled on numerous occasions to further the work of mainstreaming in the African Union.
• In July 2005, during the 6th Pre-Summit Consultative Meeting, held in Tripoli, Libya, African women’s networks committed themselves to launching an advocacy campaign to monitor the implementation of the Solemn Declaration.
• This commitment was formalized in a document entitled ‘The Civil Society Framework for Monitoring and Evaluating the Solemn Declaration.
• These women’s organizations further agreed to share the monitoring responsibilities; a decision which is reflected in an official document entitled the “Memorandum of Understanding arising from the Tripoli Commitment for Monitoring, Evaluating and Reporting on the Implementation of the Solemn Declaration”.

The Gender is My Agenda Campaign was formally launched at the Banjul Conference in June 2006.