Empowering rural women: what role for parliaments? Hosted by IPU and UN Women

The annual parliamentary event on the occasion of the 56th session of Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will be held in New York on 29 February 2012. The event, hosted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), will focus on Empowering rural women: what role for parliaments?

The meeting will focus on strategies to empower rural women. The morning session will discuss political empowerment of rural women. This segment will look at ways of ensuring that rural women are fully part of the political process and that their voices are heard and taken into account by parliaments. It will also look at the question of rural women's representation in Parliament. The afternoon session will discuss strategic objectives for the empowerment of rural women, including issues related to economic empowerment, equal access to land, credit and inheritance, education and health.

The aim is to highlight actions parliaments can take to overcome barriers and advance the status of rural women. The meeting will therefore provide an opportunity to contribute to the debates at the CSW whose priority theme this year is The empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges.

Session documents are available here.