The World Family Summit +5, encompassing with the decision of the UN ECOSOC to work for the year 2010,
the current global and national trends and challenges and their impact on gender equality and empowerment
of women which refer us to the MDG 3, 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.

The efforts done by many women’s organizations and networks in the past two decades resulted in a global,
national and local recognition of the contribution that women make to economic, social and societal development.

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 World Family Summit +5 will have 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”.

One very important topic for the World Family Organization and the participants of our Summits is to highlight
the importance of Gender Equality and Empowerment of the women relating to the Family in all cultures.

Since the year 2004, when the first World Family Summit was accomplished, in Sanya – China, this annual
event continues to be the biggest partnership towards making the present and the future world with more peace,
security, justice, tolerance, solidarity, prosperity and integrated by mobilizing and promoting the basic cell of
society – The Family – and a legacy to the future generation, through the engagement of all sectors of Society in
a “Learning – Dialogue – Action” process.