Building a space for women’s rights in the African Great Lakes

There’s a huge UN conference happening today in the Congolese capital Kinshasa on women’s rights:

Women’s rights ministers from 11 countries across Africa’s Great Lakes region are gathering today in Kinshasa for a United Nations-organized conference to take steps to set up a regional research and documentation centre on women’s rights.

The two-day meeting in the Congolese capital, jointly organized by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Ministry of Women’s Rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), will also be attended by representatives of the African Union, the African Bank of Development and the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region, as well as several UN agencies.

Check out UNESCO’s site for more details, but the goal seems to be that the Great Lakes research center will be based on a similar UNESCO-initiated women’s rights center created in 2006 in Ramallah in the occupied Palestinian territory. Sounds like a great and necessary initiative for the Great Lakes.