Bridging the Gender Gap - Intersectionality and Feminism

On 16 December 2019, the Honorable Chakib Benmoussa, then Morocco’s ambassador to France, gathered 35 fellow citizens in a conference room at the Royal Academy in the leafy outskirts of Rabat. The three dozen members of the Commission spéciale sur le modèle de développement (CSMD) had been selected for their scientific, economic and political expertise, as well as eminence in the cultural and non-profit sectors. The Commission’s mandate, given by King Mohammed VI, was a daunting one ...

If any proof was needed that change was in the air and repression on the horizon, it was in the center of Kabul: a simple sign was changed, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs was turned into the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtues and Prevention of Vice. This was nothing less than the return of the Taliban’s moral police, well remembered by the older population, ready to enforce a harsh interpretation of the religious law, the Sharia, including stoning, amputation, lashing, and publi ...

The Atlantic basin faces considerable challenges on multiple fronts. Financial and economic struggles, coupled with political shifts and social turmoil, are reshaping the region’s geopolitical landscape. Unemployment, poverty, violence, migration, extremism, climate change and other problems are on the rise and the need to tackle them effectively is pressing. To find adequate solutions to these challenges, it is crucial to create inclusive discussions between the North and the Sout ...

Covid-19 has already put severe pressure on the global economy. Within four months since the first cases of coronavirus were confirmed in China in December of 2019, millions of people have lost their jobs worldwide due to the crisis and the imposed lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus. The forecasts are gloomy. According to the International Monetary Fund, the pandemic will trigger negative growth in over 170 countries and might therefore bring a worse economic recession than ...

Almost 25 years have passed since the fourth world conference on women in Beijing in 1995. At that time, governments and women’s rights organizations adopted the Beijing Platform for Action to advance women’s rights globally. In November 2019, I attended the Paris Peace Forum panel discussion on ‘how to make the Generation Equality Forum of May-July 2020 a transformational moment’. Also in 2019, France and Mexico agreed to host the Generation Equality Forum in 2020. This Forum, conv ...