First Lady Neo Jane Masisi ground breaking initiatives to amplify the voices of adolescent and young women has motivated services providers, traditional leaders and other community leaders to amplify voices of young people to facilitate youth friendly spaces to allowing them access biomedical, structural, social or other services.
This philanthropic activity has also resulted in growing global recognition for her work. She has just been appointed the only global champion from Eastern and Southern Africa.
In September this Year, on the margins of the 78th UN General Assembly, UNAIDS Executive Director Byanima Winnie presented this new global champion role to the First Lady, and she accepted the appointment as a Global Champion.
In 2018, the First Lady was appointed UNAIDS Special Ambassador for the empowerment and engagement of young people in Botswana. She was conferred the title during the launch of NSF III , which also prioritised AGYW as holding the key to ending AIDS by 2030, given the high burden of the HIV epidemic and various social ills that they face.
Adolescent Girls Young Women(AGYW) while accounting for 9% of population account for 25% of new infections putting them at 6-7 times more at risk as compared to their male counterparts.
“She has motivated services providers, traditional leaders and other community leaders to amplify voices of young people to facilitate youth friendly spaces to allowing them access biomedical, structural, social or other services,” said Alankar Malviya, UNAIDS Country Director.
Her Excellency also recently launched the Education Plus Initiative, which is one of the high-level advocacy initiatives that calls for completion of secondary education for Adolescent Girls and Young Women as an entry point to addressing multiple inequalities faced by them.
Malviya, said, “All this has significantly contributed in bringing Botswana the glory of achieving 95-98-98 , silver tier in path to eliminate vertical transmission, and this has been possible only because of a committed top leadership, and I acknowledge here His Excellency(HE) President Masisi’s leadership that is evident in Botswana domestically funding 2/3 of its response, his governments inspiring and inclusive approach allowing everybody to have equal access to prevention, treatment and care services.”
In this new role, the First Lady will raise awareness of the global effort to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030, emphasizing and drawing attention to issues affecting AGYW, that continue to bethe main driver of the epidemic in an otherwise successful response.
First Lady Neo Masisi is expected to participate in global level activities with the support of UNAIDS.
It will include speaking engagements at high profile events and high-level regional or global meetings and conferences and undertaking fact-finding missions and broadly speaking undertake upstream policy advocacy to address inequalities globally.
