H.E. Ambassador Djibo Diallo (Niger) assures African women experts from CSOs that there is hope to silence the guns in Africa

Her Excellency the Ambassador of Niger to the Republic of Ethiopia Ambassador Djibo Diallo paid a courtesy call on women representatives from various CSOs in Africa who are attending a consultation meeting with the Special Envoy on Women, Peace and Security ahead of the Peace and Security open session to be held at the same venue tomorrow. Niger is one of the 15 countries sitting on the AU PSC. Her Excellency Ambassador Djibo Diallo gave the following speech:

“I am happy, not because I am a woman ambassador or member of Peace and Security Council, but because I am an African woman just like you. I am your big sister. Let us talk about civil society together. UI have been a part of civil society before, for more than 25 years in my country, and know what I am missing at the moment. I also did work to enforce capacity of CSOs in Niger for 4 years, and also worked with women. I feel that all of us have something to do not as members of government but as African citizens. As the PSC we have in our mandate the responsibility to interact with civil society and to wait for civil society to guide us. It is not us who must always come with commitments, you have to draw our attention to important matters that we normally we forget when in meetings with heads of states. We need you for strategic outputs. It is important for peace and security members to interact. Normally we have an annual meeting to work one day with civil society on our commitments and what you are doing is very important at the global level as civil society with the African Union. The theme of women, peace and security is very important. I must thank the AU Special Envoy for making me part of the team that travelled to Nigeria for assessment missions. I learnt in that single visit more than I already knew for the many years I have worked as an Ambassador. I came back with a lot of things to share and explain to the PSC and tomorrow is a special day for me. I am hoping that you will come with good proposals and we will try to welcome it. Maybe in two years from now war will be finished in Africa. We have a right to dream because we are working so hard on this. We can show to the world that we can. Tomorrow we are waiting for clear outputs to work on and have good commitments at the end of the session. It will be very important to show to those women, men and children suffering in this conflict that we are thinking about them, traveling for them and strategizing for them, Thank you and good luck for tomorrow.”

On 9 December 2014 the African Union (AU) Special Envoy on Women and Peace, Benita Diop, has embarked on a visit to Nigeria, to review the status of women trapped in conflict, with the status of the kidnapped Chibok girls top on her agenda. The mission was undertaken in solidarity with women in Northern Nigeria, who have been denied education and lack a chance to effectively participate in agriculture. Mme Diop also carried out peace missions to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), CAR and Somalia.

Tomorrow the Special Envoy will make her presentation of an inaugural report on the status of women caught in conflict in Central Africa, DR Congo, Nigeria and Somalia to the PSC here. Women from civil society are gathered at the venue of the PSC meeting at a consultative meeting strategically positioned at the margins of the PSC open session tomorrow, and have come up with key messages to the PSC regarding the situation of women in conflict in Congo, CAR, Nigeria and Somalia, and also regarding the women’s peace and security agenda on the continent in general. The women will make a number of requests, and among them is the need for the PSC to view the office of the SE with the seriousness it deserves given its mandate on the continent, and the need to equip it with resources for continuity until guns are silenced in Africa.

Madam Bineta Diop, the AU Special Envoy on Women, Peace and Security shared her experience traveling with Ambassador Djibo Diallo to war torn spaces. “We did not find the courage to look at each other in the face, the situation on the ground was difficult and emotions were running high. Sometimes we cried, both of us, without looking at each other but we knew we were crying. Our message was simple and clear, ‘Bring back our girls!’ said Mme Diop.”