Wafts of fresh mint pass through the sticky air, the ground is littered with cut-off bottles from which other aromatic herbs peek out, zigzagging tables laden with plant pots lead up to a building covered in hanging containers—all sprouting luscious greenness. This building is Centre d’écoute et d’encadrement pour le développement durable (Centre for Support and Training in Sustainable Development), more commonly known as Ceedd. The centre, founded in 2005 in the city of Thies, seventy kilometres east of the capital Dakar, provides microcredit and training in micro gardening to women from deprived urban settlements.

The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day was Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030. Around the world, women and men were invited to pledge their utmost efforts in achieving workplace gender parity by 2030. Sadly, in many parts of the world this remains an ambitious plan, notably in our native Nigeria. Walk into any boardroom in downtown Lagos or Abuja and it will be overwhelmingly male-dominated. Just what is stopping our Nigerian sisters from breaking the glass ceiling?

Manisha Malvade was 21 when her mother died of cancer. “Mother’s death shook me,” she said. “But I had to help my family survive.” Her father, alcoholic and unemployed, was of no help. It fell solely upon her to support her five other siblings.

It’s in the northern outskirts of Ouagadougou, in Tampouy, that we met up with Elisabeth Delma, founder of the Adaja Centre. Despite her discretion and modesty when speaking about her work, Delma; a woman well into her sixties, is a key figure in the development and promotion of Faso Dan Fani (attire from traditional handwoven cotton cloth).

Sometimes, you have to take the mountain to Mohammed. Just ask iSocial, a groundbreaking programme that involves entrepreneurs delivering vital information and services to isolated communities throughout Bangladesh. In a gender-defying feat, the entrepreneurs are tech-savvy young women—who travel on bicycles.

Kibera School for Girls, the slum’s first free primary school for girls in Kibera

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According to the guide book for staff La poupée de Timothée et le camion de Lison (Timothy’s doll and Lison’s truck), boys tend to demand more attention from adults than girls, and to dominate in conversations.

Itumeleng Makgato and Boikhutso Mokoto, both Bachelor of Commerce final-year students at Wits University in Johannesburg, are on a mission to empower any female student who feels she needs help in making herself heard.

The Centre for Science, Education, Exchange for Sustainable Development (SeeSD) is home to a group of educational mentors, working hard to kindle an interest in science, technology and innovation amongst schoolchildren—notably young girls.

We at the Graça Machel Trust know that girls face a distinctive set of barriers to learning, especially when they reach post-primary levels of education, such as lack of financial resources, sexual abuse, poor hygiene and unsafe school environments. Until now, education initiatives have not been multi-dimensional enough and are still found wanting in relation to the competencies they deliver. Most are still focused on the narrow mainstream educational skills of literacy and numeracy, leaving out personal, social and economic proficiencies that many women and girls need to survive and secure stable livelihoods. Moreover, if basic education is to be inclusive, the barriers that prevent enrolment and cause school dropout must be eliminated.

The slums of Lagos are dotted with single-parent households, most of them headed by strong-willed women facing widespread discrimination as a result of divorce, separation or widowhood.

“It is time we focus on women.” These are the renowned words of Sanjit “Bunker” Roy, the founder of Barefoot College. Set up in 1972, this extraordinary college located in the village of Tilonia, 110km south-west of Jaipur, India, teaches rural women—many of them illiterate—how to fabricate solar panels, lights and photovoltaic circuits. With these new capabilities, accredited “Solar Mamas” return home to shed light on their communities.

It’s now been four years since Athina Marmorat decided to take on the fight against social inequality at her own level by founding Rêv’Elles. This association supports and mentors young women from deprived areas and helps them tap into their potential.

As well as educating and training on traditional agricultural methods, ‘We are the solution! Celebrate African family farming’ works in other domains; helping to set up local networks and empowering rural women to take key roles in promoting and changing the mentality towards natural products. In doing so, the movement promotes agro-ecological farming and women’s rights. Dao is convinced that if women step up the the plate, they could persuade and rally men into accepting agro-ecological practices, especially in farming families.

With the use of internet and social media surging, Bangladesh has experienced a rise in gender-based cyber harassment. Despite comprising only about one-fifth of the nation’s social-media users, in 2016 alone, 73 percent of Bangladeshi women and girls online fell victim to this type of cybercrime.