Commonwealth launches Women’s Forum
Malta’s President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca will launch the Commonwealth’s first Women’s Forum on 6 March 2015, as part of International Women’s Day 2015 celebrations.
The Women’s Forum is aimed at empowering girls and women through education, enterprise and leadership at all levels of decision making.
The launch, in Malta, will kick off a series of events that will focus on solutions to the challenges facing women across the Commonwealth.
The event is a CHOGM Malta 2015 Taskforce initiative and is being organised by the Malta Government, in collaboration with the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Gender Section.
The Forum will bring together women’s rights campaigners, NGOs, government leaders, women’s machineries, and powerful women entrepreneurs. It will take place at the high-level Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in November 2015.
The theme of the Forum is ‘Women Ahead: Be All That You Can Be.’ In addition to exploring and addressing the barriers women face in accessing opportunities in education, business and political leadership, it will tackle other issues, including women’s health and domestic violence.
Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma has stressed that the empowerment of women and girls is a central concern for the Commonwealth.
Josephine Ojiambo, Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General, said: “Women have the potential to improve their own economic status, as well as that of the communities and countries in which they live. Yet they are often hampered by systems that do not recognise their contributions or provide equal access to opportunities.
“Our aim is for every Commonwealth country to create societies where equality for all is not just a notion but a reality, and the human rights of the more than one billion women in the Commonwealth are respected and protected.”
The Forum will build on the achievements of the Commonwealth Secretariat's Gender Section, which has been working closely with governments, international institutions, NGOs and women’s organisations to deepen the understanding and implementation of gender sensitive policies, such as gender-responsive budgets, targets for women in political and business leadership and laws to protect women from violence.