The UNESCO Chair in Water, Women and Decision-Making (CUEFPOD), led by its coordinator Euphrasia Kouassi Yao set up a new instrument for promoting peace in Côte d'Ivoire called CREA-PEACE. The launching ceremony of this tool was held on Thursday, July 25, 2019, at the headquarters of the said structure located in Abidjan-Riviera.

Indeed, the Regional Community for Empowerment and Peace (CREA-PEIX) is an instrument set up by the UNESCO Chair as part of its gender and peace mission.

"CREA-PEIX is an instrument developed by the UNESCO Chair to accelerate its mission for the gender and peace duo. It finds its origin in the vision of inclusion, equality and peace that we pursue for 30 years through our contributions to the implementation of strategies, programs and projects of development. The goal of peace-makers is to promote peace through community and participatory leadership in which women leaders, especially those in the regions, play an important role, "said Minister Euphrasia Kouassi Yao.

The goal, according to the Special Adviser to the President of the Republic in charge of gender, is to capitalize on her thirty years of commitment to peace and social justice, in order to accelerate the process of empowerment and peace. This, relying on women leaders identified in different regions of Côte d'Ivoire.

To achieve this goal, the UNESCO Chair will focus on concrete actions, training and awareness raising. All this, with the aim of consolidating the major achievements of Côte d'Ivoire for the realization of peace with a view to an inclusive, equitable and sustainable development for an emerging Côte d'Ivoire.
Context of setting up CREA-PEIX
The UNESCO Water Women and Decision-Making Chair works to support the efforts of the State of Côte d'Ivoire to create a national environment favorable to the rights of the strategic and operational instruments aiming at the establishment of a society through the approach gender as a solution integrator and equitable and sustainable development tool. Among these strategic and operational instruments developed by CUEFOD is the development of innovative projects and programs promoting gender, such as COCOFCI. (...) In its logic of intervention and in view of the national and international context, the UNESCO Chair has decided to accelerate its mission in the field of gender and peace. This justifies the birth of CREA-PEIX, an instrument for promoting peace in Côte d'Ivoire. CREA -PAIX will be developed mainly for rural and peri-urban populations.

The UNESCO Water Women and Decision-Making Chair receives support from the African Union and UNDP
As part of this noble mission, Minister Euphrasia Kouassi Yao received the strong support of the African Union. According to Mouhama Tala, the representative of this institution in Côte d'Ivoire, the African continent being confronted with conflicts of all kinds, this initiative is to be welcomed. Because to believe it, peace should not be a slogan, it must rather be in our actions. And the co-ordinator of the UNESCO Chair is taking concrete action in this area. For that reason, supporting her is a duty for her.

© CotedivoireNews

Abran Saliho