The African Regional Forum on Sustainable Development

The Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (ARFSD) is the continent’s annual intergovernmental platform convened by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in collaboration with the African Union Commission to review progress on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Agenda 2063 (UNECA, 2026). The Twelfth Session (ARFSD-12), will be held in Addis Ababa from 28 to 30 April 2026 under the theme “Turning the Tide: Transformative and Coordinated Actions,” focused on SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) (UNECA, 2026; EnviroNews Nigeria, 2026).

These  goals  are  often  treated  as  technical  and  infrastructure-focused priorities. However, consultations conducted by FEMNET with women, girls, feminist organizations, youth advocates, and civil society actors across Africa demonstrate that these goals are deeply political, gendered, and shaped by unequal power relations (FEMNET, 2026). Access to water, energy, infrastructure, digital systems, safe cities, and development partnerships continues to be experienced unevenly across gender, geography, disability, age, class, and rural-urban divides.

“Policies are useful. They give us measurable goals. But they have not yet begun to be mainstreamed in a way that they make a real difference in people’s lives.” (Tatenda E., Stop the Bleeding Consortium (Zimbabwe/Latvia)

This paper argues that SDG 5 (Gender Equality) cannot remain isolated from the broader development agenda. Gender equality must function as the integrating lens across all goals under review. Without this integration, Africa risks advancing infrastructure, economic growth, and partnerships while reproducing structural inequalities that continue to exclude women, girls, and marginalized communities.

Background: Regional Commitments and Persistent Gaps

Africa’s commitment to gender equality and sustainable development has evolved through major regional and global frameworks, including the Beijing Platform for Action, the Maputo Protocol, Agenda 2063, and the SDGs (African Union, 2026; Oxfam, 2025). Successive ARFSD declarations from Niamey, Addis Ababa, and Kampala have increasingly emphasized gender-responsive planning, financing, inclusion, and women’s access to economic and technological opportunities. However, despite these commitments, progress remains uneven (African Union, 2026). Consultations with African youth and civil society organizations have highlighted persistent implementation gaps, especially in rural, informal, and conflict-affected settings (UNECA, 2026; Sonke Gender Justice, 2025).

This paper draws extensively from consultations conducted with women’s rights organizations, feminist networks, youth advocates, grassroots actors, and civil society representatives across several African countries including Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Tunisia, Mali, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Mozambique, and South Africa (UNECA, 2026). The consultations included contributions and reflections from organizations and actors across the continent participating through ARFSD consultation processes (UNECA, 2026; Women in Mining Africa, 2026).

Across the consultations, participants consistently highlighted the widening gap between policy commitments and lived realities (UNECA, 2026). Contributors repeatedly emphasized that despite strong continental and global commitments, women and girls continue to face structural exclusion linked to unequal access to water, sanitation, energy, infrastructure, digital systems, financing, urban services, and decision-making spaces (UNECA, 2026; African Union, 2026). The consultations further highlighted that these inequalities are intensified by climate change, economic exclusion, shrinking civic space, weak accountability systems, unpaid care burdens, and underfunding of grassroots feminist organizations (Sonke Gender Justice, 2025; Oxfam, 2025; UNECA, 2026).