Addressing Sexual Gender-Based Violence in the Great Lakes Region: Insights from the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region

The Great Lakes Region has a long history of political instability, militarised conflicts, and human rights violations that have contributed to issues of widespread sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), particularly against women and girls, and a culture of impunity. In response to the region's challenges, the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) emerged as a multilateral framework, with one of its goals being to prevent and combat SGBV. This paper critically examines the role of the ICGLR in addressing SGBV in the Great Lakes Region (GLR) using the human rights-based approach (HRBA) as an analytical lens. It explores the legal frameworks, underlying principles, and practical strategies employed by the ICGLR to protect human rights and promote gender equality in the region. However, the analysis reveals that despite the concerted efforts of the ICGLR, violence against women persists, thus the assertion that the current strategies necessitate a review of the ICGLR's initiatives to reinforce its effectiveness in the fight against SGBV in the region. The discourse not only identifies the gaps in the ICGLR's initiatives but also propounds recommendations to strengthen the organisation's capacity to mitigate the challenges posed by SGBV. Consequently, this paper seeks to contribute to policy formulation and to the critical discourse of the ICGLR's role in forging a more secure and equitable future for the GLR.