FMP Friday

Yavi Madurai writes about a recent landmark decision by the Global Vaccine Alliance’s (GAVI) board’s approval of the establishment of the US$1 billion African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA), and what it means for Africa’s healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors vis a vis the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).    …

Yavi Madurai writes on the significance of this year’s Africa Industrialization Week, celebrated last week on the theme, “Accelerating Africa’s Industrialization Through the Empowerment of African women in Processing for an Integrated Market.”     What a week it has been! Africa Industrialization Week, that is. The continent kicked off…

  This week I am writing as a South African, the southernmost country on the African continent. I am a proud South African pan-Africanist, to be exact! Two weeks ago, something profound happened in the world – South Africa’s national rugby team, a.k.a. the Springboks, became the first and only…

Yavi Madurai blogs about the need for alignment between the United Nations Agenda 2030 and the African Union’s Agenda 2063 for more effective implementation of the latter’s projects and initiatives, such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the AU Free Movement Protocol (AU-FMP).     The African…

In this edition of her fortnightly blog, Yavi Madurai reflects on discussions at the recently held African Union’s 12th High-Level Dialogue on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance, particularly in relation to the nexus between the AfCFTA and the AU-FMP and the overall quest for a borderless Africa.     The…

In the first of a 3-part reflective series on the 2023 Free Movement Protocol (FMP) National Dialogue Series (NDS), Yavi Madurai reflects on her experience as the facilitator of the dialogue series, misunderstandings of the Protocol by AU Member States, as well as her hopes for Africa’s future lying in…

This is a sequel to Yavi Madurai’s fortnight blog, The Future is Here: A New World Order has been Set in Motion on Africa’s Soil under the subtitle: BRICS and the AfCFTA Effect.     It was two weeks ago that South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa closed the BRICS Summit…

There has been much ado about the XV BRICS Summit that concluded yesterday a few kilometers up the road from me in Johannesburg, South Africa. Although we have had 14 previous BRICS summits and BRICS has existed for just more than 14 years, nothing has really come out of the…

A meeting that will one day be recorded in history as the day the health and prosperity of African women & girls’ future was forever changed.     On August 9, 1956, four South African women catalysed women’s liberation on the African continent, leading a march of 20 000 multiracial women…

Nine months before the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was birthed, the Pan African Women’s Organisation (PAWO) was born on July 31, 1962, to bring together African women’s organizations on a platform for joint action to promote human rights and gender equality.     I bore witness to the day…