December 4th - Day 1

8:30 - 17:30

Registration

9:30 – 10:30

Opening Ceremony

 10:30 – 10:45

Coffee Break

10:45 – 11:45

Ministerial Roundtable

Challenges for Presentations

• Past Picture: 1990 / 1995 / 2000 / 2005
• Present Picture: 2009/2010
• Political initiatives for the change (or not)
• Innovative Governmental actions for the change
• Future perspective

Note: The Minister presenting should give a general picture of the region and some examples from his/her own country.

11:45 – 12:45

NGO Roundtable

Challenges for Presentations

• The MDG 3 Goal and Target as formulated in the year 2000 is enough to promote Gender Equality and empower women?
• The political initiatives developed for the last 15 years are adequate and making progress?
• The partnership between governments and NGOs on implementation on innovative actions for a change is happening and promoting changes?
• Future perspectives

Note: The NGO presenting should give a general picture of the region and some examples on initiatives from his/her own country.

12:45 – 14:00

Lunch

14:00 – 15:30

Success Stories – Session I
Success Story I:
Success Story II:
Success Story III:
Success Story IV:

15:30 – 15:45

Coffee Break

15:45 – 17:15

Success Stories – Session II
Success Story V:
Success Story VI:
Success Story VII:
Success Story VIII:

20:30

Official Sponsor Welcome Dinner

Plenary Sessions 5th / 6th December

General Justification:

We all agree that reducing gender inequality and empowering the woman are very powerful tools to reduce poverty and achieve high levels of well-beings of families in all cultures and societies around the world. Gender inequality is deeply rooted in entrenched attitudes, societal institutions and market forces, therefore, political commitments at the highest international and national levels, and especially, actions at the local level are essential. Political commitments can allow the adequate establishment of policies that can target social changes and to allocate the necessary resources to achieve Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment.
Gender is social construct. It defines and differentiates the roles, rights, responsibilities and obligations of women and men. And those differences form the basis of social norms that defines behaviors for women and men and determine their social, economic and political power.

The Plenary Sessions will discuss how countries, governments, politicians, judicial systems and civil society are approaching the issue. A good picture of the past and a perspective for the future will be our great challenge to come up with a declaration that will reflect the reality of the twenty first century regarding Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, having as its main guidelines the work done by the Millennium Project Task Force on Gender Equality – MDG 3 – focusing on the analysis, discussions, conclusions and recommendations about the goals and targets decided in the year 2000, the reality of the year 2009/2010, and especially, reflecting about the new “MDG 3 + approach”.

December 5th – Day 2

09:00-10:30

Plenary Session I

Theme: Achieving Gender Equality and Family well-being by improving women’s and girls’ capabilities domains.

• Providing universal access to primary education
• Strengthen opportunities for post-primary education for girls while simultaneously meeting commitments to universal primary education.
• Guarantee sexual and reproductive health and rights.

JUSTIFICATION:
Gender parity in access to schooling is the first step towards Gender Equality and Family well-being in education. Global commitments to girls’ education have focused in the main on primary education. While this focus must continue, the achievement of the MDG 3 requires strengthening post primary education, opportunities for girls since higher level of education have the greatest pay off for women’s empowerment such as an increased earning potential, ability to bargain for resources within the household, decision-making autonomy, control over their own fertility and participation in public life.

The MDG 3 cannot be achieved without the guarantee of sexual and reproductive rights for girls and women since they are central to women’s ability to build their capabilities, take advantage of economical and political opportunities and control their destinies. Regarding to improve maternal health and diminish vulnerability to sexual transmitted infections, particularly HIV/AIDS, it is broadly known that educated women including sexual and reproductive education have more probability to deal positively with this issue.

Keynote I:

Keynote II:

Keynote III:

Discussion

Recommendations

10:30-11:00

Coffee Break

11:00-12:30

Plenary Session II
Theme: Strengthening Family-focused Social and Economic Policies to improve women’s and girls’ access to the opportunities domain.

• Invest in infrastructure in the context of Family-focused policies to reduce women’s and girls’ time burden
• Invest in “Decent Housing”
• Guarantee women’s and girls’ property and inheritance rights.

JUSTIFICATION:
Women’s and girls’ ability to participate in educational, productive, and civic activities and thus to empower themselves economically and politically is often limited by a household division of labor that assigns to women and girls the bulk of the responsibility for everyday household maintenance tasks. For poor women and girls this responsibility is made more onerous by the underinvestment
in public infrastructure that characterizes most low-income countries. Three types of infrastructure are particularly critical to reduce women’s time burden: transport, water and sanitation, and energy.

The time spent by women and girls on routine tasks can be reduced dramatically by the provision of accessible and affordable sources of transport systems, energy, and water and sanitation systems. It is worth to mention that increasing women’s participation in the design and implementation of infrastructure projects can help to overcome obstacles to access and affordability.

On the other hand, ensuring women’s property and inheritance rights will help empower women both economically and socially and rectify a fundamental injustice. Ownership and control over assets such as land and housing provide economic security, incentives for taking economic risks that lead to growth, and important economic returns, including income. Secure tenure to land and home improves women’s welfare. Gender-equal land rights can enhance productive efficiency. Land title can serve as collateral, improving women’s access to credit, which in turn can increase output.

Land ownership can act as a protective factor for women against domestic violence.

Keynote I:

Keynote II:

Keynote III:

Discussion

Recommendations

12:30-14:00

Lunch

10:00-15:30

Plenary Session III
Theme: Reducing poverty and improving Families’ quality of life by promoting Gender Equality and access to “Decent Work”.

• Eliminate Gender inequality in employment

JUSTIFICATION:
Women’s work, both paid and unpaid, is critical to the survival and security of poor households and families and an important route through which households and families escape poverty. Moreover, paid employment is critical to women’s empowerment.

Gender inequalities exist in entry to work, conditions at work, and in exit from the labor market.
Having access a paid work is critical to a family survival, but it is not sufficient for reducing poverty or empowering women. Decent and productive work for all should be the focus.

This session will devote to the discussion of the strategies to reduce barriers for women to entering employment as:

• Access to post-primary and vocational and technical education.
• Expansion of national policies and programs to provide support for care of children, people with disability and elderly as an important intervention to enable women in paid employment.
• Inequalities in the labour market and gaps in earning and unemployment.

Keynote I:

Keynote II:

Keynote III:

Discussion

Recommendations 

15:30-16:00

Coffee Break

16:00-17:30

Plenary Session IV
Theme: Strengthening Family structures by creating equal opportunities to the access of financial resources, social protection and social security.

• Promote Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women by implementing non-discriminatory policies regarding the access of the women to financial resources, social protection and social security.

JUSTIFICATION:
Social protection and safety net programs all too often exclude women by failing to account for gender differences in labour market participation. Equal access and treatment in employment is necessary to foster rights at work and providing employment, social protection and social dialogue.

This session will discuss the focus needed on the global, national and local levels to identify policies and programs that are conductive to women’s economical empowerment, the persistent obstacles for its implementations and the concrete proposal for improvements:

• Discrimination against women in the labour market.
• Lack of legal provisions guarantying economical rights of women.
• Lack of adequate training and technology and unequal sharing of responsibility between women and men.
• Budget formulations at the local levels that can impact on women access to economic. and financial resources.
• Balance between women and men in allocating their time to formal, informal and unpaid work.
• Women’s access to financial services including savings, insurance, remittance transference and credits.
• Implications of women’s shorter work histories in the formal sector on the social security systems.

Keynote I:

Keynote II:

Keynote III:

Discussion

Recommendations 

20:30

Official Sponsored Dinner

December 6th – Day 3

09:00-10:30

Plenary Session V
Theme: The importance of women’s participation in political at all levels as a human right and in the decision-making positions at all levels to improve the quality of governments.

• Increasing women’s representation in political offices as recommended by the Beijing Platform of Action targeting of 30% of seats for women in national parliaments.
• The importance of women’s participation in political life at all levels to contribute to the  formulation of Developmental Policies.

JUSTIFICATION:
Countries where women’s share of seats in political bodies is less than 30 percent are less inclusive, less egalitarian, and less democratic. Equality of opportunity in politics is a human right. Evidence also suggests that women’s interests often differ from men’s and that women who participate directly in decision making bodies press for different priorities than those emphasized by men. Finally, women’s participation in political decision making bodies improves the quality of governance.

This session will discuss the evolution of the women’s participation in political bodies:

• A country’s political culture as an important role in affecting women’s political participation
• The barriers encountered by women to enter and remain active in the political life.
• The future perspectives for women leaders, politicians and governmental high-level decision makers.

Keynote I: 

Keynote II:

Discussion

Recommendations 

10:30-11:00

Coffee Break

11:00-12:30

Plenary Session VI
Theme: Trends and challenges to deal with Domestic Violence and violence against women and girls: The impact on the Family and Community Development.

• Combined intervention on infrastructure, legal, judicial, enforcement, education, health and other services-related actions can significantly reduce violence against girls and women and ameliorate its negative consequences.

JUSTIFICATION:
In the past decade evidence has shown that violence against girls and women is an important development constraint. National governments, women’s organizations, and the United Nations now recognize violence against women as a basic human rights abuse; atrocities such as rape committed against women during armed conflict are acknowledged as a “weapon of war” and a gender-based crime; and social violence in the home is correlated with economic crime outside
the home, as well as with political and institutional violence at the local and national levels.

This session will discuss the many forms of violence against girls and women, the impact of the violence in the family and community and the consequences for peace, security and development:

• The epidemiologic and social aspects of domestic violence against girls and women.
• The impact of domestic violence against girls and women on the Family development.
• The impact of domestic violence against girls and women on the community development.

Keynote I: 

Keynote II: 

Discussion

Recommendations 

12:30-14:00

Lunch

14:00-15:30

Plenary Session VII – Conclusion and Recommendations

15:30-16:00

Coffee Break

16:00-17:30

Closing Ceremony

Presentation of the World Family Summit +5 Declaration
WFO Award Ceremony 2009
Presentation of the World Family Summit +6

20:30

Official WFO Sponsored Farewell Dinner