Kenya: Message of the United Nations (UN) Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region, said Djinnit, on the Pan African Women’s Day Celebration The vision of the Office of the United Nations (UN) Special Envoy for the Great Lakes region is to ensure the advancement of women in the region and enable them to act as a bridge in building trust between the various components of societies NAIROBI, Kenya, July 31, 2018/APO Group/ -- As the continent and the Great Lakes region celebrate African Women’s Day under the theme “Vision and Innovation”, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate women and girls on this important day. On the auspicious day, we should emphasize again and again that their continued empowerment requires us all to make bold decisions and maintain our commitment to gender equality and human rights for all.     The vision of the Office of the UN Special Envoy for the Great Lakes region is to ensure the advancement of women in the region and enable them to act as a bridge in building trust between the various components of societies at both national and regional levels.    The Guarantors of the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the DRC and the region namely UN, AU, ICGLR and SADC continue to advocate for women's political participation in all decision-making processes and ongoing political and dialogue processes throughout the Great Lakes region.  Pan African Women's Day celebrations must also be used to reinforce our commitment to the promotion of collaborative partnerships to ensure efforts towards finding durable solutions to our collective challenges, such as the often-dire situation women and children frequently face in refugee camps, as well as those cantoned as dependents in ex-combatants’ camps, the economic empowerment of women and their lack of access to justice. The Office of the Special Envoy calls on the leaders of the Great Lakes region, as they prepare to hold their 9th high level Regional Oversight Mechanism meeting later this year in Kampala, to recommit themselves to supporting women's political participation and further promoting gender equality and women’s rights across the region. Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations (UN).