ambassador mukantabana: if i can say why it is happening. you mentioned the history, also. you have a very tiny country with a million people dead in three months. you either die or you resurrect. so what happened was that the comprehensive, we include women, was that we needed to harness all the efforts of everybody in the country to be alive. and women had -- are the ones who kept the fabric of the country going. given the incredible challenges when you are looking at people who -- a society that has been reduced in ashes. but so there are three things. one is leadership. you have to set a vision that this is what you want. you have to have intentionality. there's intention. and then you really have to marry policy and practices. so it means that in our particular situation, we created what we call home grown initiatives. socioeconomic initiatives give toward empowerment of women. so for instance we say like what does it mean to give a cow to poor women so they are able to organize themselves. or community work, cooperatives, where they put people together they are able t

and with even greater pleasure that i turn it over to ambassador mukantabana. and we are also joined here by susan markham from u.s. idea, a former colleague of mine who runs their gender work there. delighted to have you as well. ambassador? >> thank you so much. >> thank you very much. >> ambassadors, members of the diplomatic corps, friends of africa and distinguished guests happy africa day celebration! on behalf of the african ambassador's group accredited to the united states of america in washington, d.c., i seized this opportunity to express our deepest gratitude to the united states institute of peace for hosting this event on the sidelines of africa day 2015 celebrations. most especially i want to thank the president of the u.s. institute of peace honorable fans lee lindborg and their team for this wonderful event organized in conjunction with our co-chairs of africa day 2015 organizing committee for his excellencesy rashad bohar ambassador of the kingdom of morocco. and the ambassador of the arab republic of egypt and their team who have worked tirel