Dinah Musindarwezo

Dinah Musindarwezo is a Rwandan feminist and pan-African women's rights activist. She is director of policy and communications at Womankind Worldwide, and the former Executive Director of the African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET).

Life

In 2010 Musindarwezo was working as a gender equality specialist for Norwegian People's Aid in Rwanda.[1]

In 2012 she became executive director of FEMNET,[2] based in Kenya.[3] As FEMNET executive director, she expressed outrage in June 2017 at Tanzanian president John Magufuli's call to exclude pregnant students from education:

With all the work we have done to emancipate Africa’s girl-child from the shackles of discrimination and violation, a sitting president turns around to "re-victimize" and treat their situation like a terrible infectious disease which other girls must be protected from.[4][5]

In February 2018 she convened a two-day meeting in Addis Ababa for African women's rights activists to strategise ahead of the annual United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.[6]

Musindarwezo resigned from FEMNET in 2018.[2] She became director of policy and communications at Womankind Worldwide, a UK-based organisation supporting women's rights groups in Africa and Asia. There she has highlighted the gendered effect of the debt of developing countries, and on the progressive exclusion of civil society organizations from development financing discussion in the aftermath of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.[7] In April 2020 she called on the African Union to negotiate debt repayment delays for member states, to allow African countries to concentrate on fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.[8]

Works

• (with Tim Jones) Debt and gender equality: How debt-servicing conditions harm women in Africa, Bretton Woods Observer, Spring 2019.

References

1. Jina Moore, Global leadership: In Rwanda, women run the show, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 November 2010. Accessed 10 May 2020.
2. Meet Ms Memory Kachambwa, the new FEMNET's Executive Director, The Standard, 26 June 2018. Accessed 10 May 2020.
3. Swanee Hunt, Women in Post-genocide Rwanda Have Helped Heal Their Country, National Geographic, 4 April 2014. Accessed 10 May 2020.
4. Tanzania president says teen mothers should quit school, News24, 23 June 2017. Accessed 10 May 2020.
5. Tanzania president's remarks on teen mothers sparks anger, Daily Nation, 24 June 2017. Accessed 10 May 2020.
6. Women meeting to kick off in Addis Ababa, Daily Nation, 16 February 2018. Accessed 10 May 2020.
7. Crystal Simeoni, When it comes to development, Public Private Partnerships give us a lot to wonder about, 4 October 2019. Accessed 10 May 2020.
8. Mildred Ngesa, Africa CDC and AU must offer dignified, inclusive focus on women & girls in COVID-19 response, Citizen TV, 25 April 2020. Accessed 10 May 2020.