I think we’ve been told what to do and what’s good for us. And we have to come back and determine what is good for us. That’s why I said for educatio… - Amina J. Mohammed

Everybody’s got a closet, and some worse than others. But if that person takes a good message that does no harm, that brings people together, that forwards Africa, we need to find that community.

Innovative instruments including blended finance can all play an important role, but we need to massively scale-up that delivery.

First of all, I think Africa is trying to make those strides that are necessary to achieving SDG 5 (Gender Equality). But the approach to development in Africa has always been ad hoc, and I think we have been pitting some of our greatest challenges against each other in terms of making choices. For example, we will say, Well we have to make a choice between a woman and health. Or a woman and an education budget. And I think this is where we have got it wrong. The fact is that women are an integral part of any investment, be it in health, in education, in agriculture, etc. Africa needs to recognize that our human resources are the biggest asset base that we have, and to ignore investing in 50% of it, is just foolhardy and affects results, as well as the rights that women have in their lives.