Tawonga Kayira

Tawonga is a radical feminist, gender, communications and human rights expert. She contributes to LIFE-AR in Malawi as a member of the Women Network in Climate Action (WONECAM), providing oversights on Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI). She is passionate about how gender intersects with agriculture and human rights. With LIFE-AR, she has supported in the development of a GESI Delivery Mechanism note, GESI reports, development of GESI indicators, ensuring GESI cuts across all five offers, attending and contributing to GESI working group meetings, building partnership with relevant key stakeholders including relevant government ministries such as the Ministry of Gender, advocating for the development of a discourse that provides a nexus between gender and agriculture, the Gender Action Plan and harmonisation of the project with relevant national programmes on climate change enabling a symbiotic environment.

Tawonga is equally passionate about addressing structural inequalities that promote gender equality in terms of substantial equality and de jure and de facto equality. She works currently as an Executive Director for Gender Governance Institute which she founded. Tawonga holds a Master of Laws (LLM) Degree in International Human Rights Law focussing on Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Africa. She has completed a MSc. in Gender and Development Magna Cum Laude in both course work and research proposal with the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR) and holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Strategic Management from the University of Derby and a Bachelor’s Degree with Honours from the University of East Anglia in Media and English (Joint Major). Tawonga current research interests are on Gender and Law and in particular on developing feminist jurisprudence through feminist judgements using feminist theories such as anthropological approaches and legal methods.