Interdisciplinary Seminar:
Education for Sustainable development
Convener: Eliane Didier, France

The Role of Women in Promoting Education for Sustainability in Africa
Rosemary Olive Mbone Enie, British Federation of Women Graduates

The presentation evaluates the Women’s International Coalition Organisation (WICO) Africa as an African based women’s NGO promoting the role of women in sustainable development in Africa. WICO’s objectives are to foster in women, as groups or individuals:

• Awareness as a means of improving their livelihoods;
• Knowledge so that they gain a variety of experience in and a basic understanding of self-reliance, empowerment and peace building;
• Attitudes that help them acquire a concern for participating in development programmes and projects;
• Skills necessary for women’s self-reliance, empowerment and peace building;
• Opportunities for active and responsible participation in self-reliance, empowerment and peace building projects and programmes.

WICO’s guiding principles include:

• Helping women as groups or individuals to discover the symptoms and real causes of women’s problems;
• Considering women issues as a continuous lifelong learning process;
• Enabling women to have a role in planning their learning experiences and an opportunity for making decisions and accepting their consequences;
• Promoting the value and necessity for local, national, regional and international cooperation on the prevention of and solution to women s problems;
• Explicitly considering women s aspects in the plan for development and growth;
• Emphasizing the complexity of developmental problems and the need to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills for tackling women’s issues;
• Utilizing diverse learning environments and a broad array of educational and training approaches to teaching/learning about and from women with due stress on practical activities and first hand experience.

Ms Rosemary Olive Mbone Enie is a Cameroonian geologist and Gender Ambassador of the Gender and Water Alliance, the Netherlands. She has had over 15 years experience in the field of Water and Environmental Education and management. She presently works as the General Secretary WICO International and President WICO Africa, Executive Director, Cameroon Vision Trust and African Coordinator of Women Global Green Action Network. She sees women as the promoters of world peace for the 21st century.