Second Hemispheric Forum "Women's full citizenship for democracy"

From July 18th to 21st 2012, CIM, in collaboration with UN Women and International IDEA, will host its Second Hemispheric Forum "Women's full citizenship for democracy", with the aim of identifying and discussing the political and state reforms necessary in order to expedite the exercise of women’s full citizenship in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Second Hemispheric Forum "Women's full citizenship for democracy" is being carried out as part of the activities of the project “Development of capacity for women’s leadership and incidence in public policy for gender equality” and in follow up to the recommendations of the First Hemispheric Forum “Women’s Leadership for a Citizens’ Democracy”, which was held from April 4th to 6th 2011, in Washington, DC, in collaboration with UN Women and the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB).

The event seeks to promote synergy, consensus and joint activities between the government’s executive, legislative and judicial branches, women’s networks and organizations and ombudsmen. This event is co-sponsored by UN Women, International IDEA and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID).

The expected outcomes of the Second Hemispheric Forum include:

• recommendations on priorities, strategies and opportunities for incidence in the reform and modernization processes of the governmental branches, political parties and electoral institutions;
• exchanged experiences on strategies, outcomes and lessons learned on political reform and modernization of the state from a gender mainstreaming and women’s rights perspective; and
• the creation of spaces for pluralistic dialogue, cooperation among states and promoting synergies between governmental branches, ombudsmen, women’s organizations/networks and civil society.

The participants of the Second Hemispheric Forum will include the ministers and directors of the National Machineries for the Advancement of Women, the Presidents of the Commissions for Gender Equality of the parliaments of the region; parliamentarians; judges/ministers of the Supreme and Electoral Courts; public defenders and women’s rights advocates from Latin America and Caribbean; women’s networks and organizations, representatives of international organizations, the diplomatic corps accredited to the Dominican Republic and special guests of the Dominican government.

For more information visit OAS website.