Niger Community Leader Addresses UN Security Council

Aichatou Mounkaila is a community leader from the Diffa region of Niger who has spent the last 20 years of her life supporting and empowering women and girls. Since 2021, she has led the Network of Women’s Organizations of the Lake Chad Basin (RESOF-BLT), a collective of women’s rights and women-led groups from across Niger, Chad, Cameroun, Nigeria, Mali and Burkina Faso, a region coping with the most severe impacts of armed violence and climate change. The network focuses their efforts on conflict prevention, mediation, peacebuilding, and the protection of civilians. CARE, which was involved in RESOF-BLT’s creation, provides technical assistance to the network, which includes assisting their advocacy work. In May of this year, with the support of CARE, Mounkaila was invited by the Swiss Mission to the United Nations to brief the UN Security Council during its annual open debate on the protection of civilians.