Time and place: June 24–June 27, 2021, Voksenåsen hotel, Oslo

This article examines the influence of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on intra-regional dynamics. Given that the BRI traverses many countries, what has not been fully addressed in the literature is how the initiative is likely to influence inter-state relations in specific regions.

Despite a century of efforts to bring about gender justice, women and girls continue to occupy highly disadvantaged positions. It remains a vexing quandary in the twenty-first century that African girls hold less power, wealth, and voice in the public sphere than almost any group globally. Girlhood studies are a critical means to counter the historical tendency for feminist scholarship to center adult women and ignore or marginalize girls.