The Fifth South Asia Regional Ministerial Meeting – “Celebrating Beijing Plus Ten”, was as special as the year 2005 itself. A year of milestones for gender equality, it marks the tenth anniversary of the historic Fourth World Conference on Women at Beijing; 30 years since the First World Conference on Women at Mexico; and, five years since the Millennium Summit. UNIFEM South Asia Regional Office has taken the Beijing Platform for Action forward since. After Beijing, UNIFEM South Asia Regional Office has been hosting biennial meetings jointly with governments in South Asia, bringing together all the SAARC countries to talk about their work towards advancing women’s rights in the region, despite conflicts within some of the countries and part of the region. A year after Beijing on September 9, 1996, UNIFEM hosted the very first South Asia Regional Ministerial Conference in India. The whole thrust of the conferences has always been to capture the voices of women and ensure that, more than just global events, these conferences become women’s events. The process has been very important because it has brought together all stakeholders, particularly the government, the women’s groups, the civil society and various non-government organisations working on the ground. The significance of the forum has also been that the policy-makers, the leaders and the ministers involved in implementing the Beijing Declaration can take stock of ground realities and, at the same time, exchange views with the leaders from other countries. In all these, UNIFEM acts as a facilitator and identifies emerging issues and catalytic areas for regional cooperation. On reflection, the South Asia Regional Ministerial Conference is distinctly different from other fora for women’s concerns, primarily because the dynamics are different: the agenda is very much that of the participants’; the process has been built and sustained over time; and the momentum and direction are generated from within the forum and not externally imposed. These are probably the reasons why the Beijing torch has continued aflame in South Asia to date.
|
Publisher:
UNWOMEN
,
(2005
) |
Type / Script:
Publication
in English
|
Keywords:
WOMEN, WOMEN RIGHTS, GENDER, GENDER EQUALITY, CIVIL SOCIETY, LIVELIHOOD, WOMEN ADVANCEMENT, EMPOWERMENT, GENDER MAINSTREAMING, GENDER BASED VIOLENCE, HEALTH, EDUCATION, WOMEN IN DEVELOPMENT, RURAL WOMEN, CHILDREN, TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS, PROSTITUTION, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, HIV/AIDS, AIDS PREVENTION, WOMEN EMPLOYMENT, HUMAN RIGHTS, HUMAN SECURITY, POVERTY, EDUCATION, TRAINING PROGRAMMES, HEALTH, WOMEN IN ARMED CONFLICTS, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, CAPACITY BUILDING
|
Thematic Group:
UNWOMEN
:
Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
|
Thesaurus:
14.01.00
- Advancement Of Women
|
Reference Link:
|
|
|
** This document has been:
1044
times viewed
2
times downloaded. Feeder:
LEELASHRESTHA
, Editor:
, Auditor:
View Document History
|
|
|
|
|