Spotlight on Millenium Development Goals and the Millenium + 5 summit

11 July 2005

On Friday 08 July, National CSO-Government consultations were staged in Suva commemorating the
start of national CSO-Government consultations in the lead up to the Commonwealth People's Forum which will be staged parallel to the CHOGM - Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Valletta, Malta. Hosted at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and co-chaired by the Royal Commonwealth Society and the Pacific representative of the Commonwealth Foundation (CSAC), Jese Sikivou, the day long consultation was an opportunity for the CSO representatives and government counterparts present to "collectively determine means by which Commonwealth Civil Societies can better coordinate their respective efforts to achieve global initiatives such as the MDGs, WSIS, SIDS, etc by compelling the commonwealth family of organisations to provide the necessary space, means, support and
platform."

The global commitments which were discussed from a Fiji perspective and enabled sharing of information from a policy and programmatic perspective on - how Fiji, as well as other Pacific Island governments are progressing, with the assistance of UNDP towards attaining the MDGS; Discussion on the specific needs of small island developing states (SIDS) including looking at ways in which sustainable development could be addressed from a social and economic perspective and not just limiting it to environmental issues only and to consider how the Fiji Government is progressing towards the implementation of a government policy in the wake of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and how, new trade regimes are impacting on the collective call by civil society groups to ensure economic justice for all.

The Fiji consultation has begun the discussion towards identifying national issues of concern around these four thematic issues that will be discussed during the upcoming CHOGM meeting, as well as recommend strategies that will be able to address the issues of concern as well as commence formulation of a national CSO statement on the four issues of concern for submission to the CSO forum in Malta, later this year.

The consultation agreed that there was a greater need for more approrpriate communication forms to assist all stakeholders, including the mainstream and community media to better inform communities of
policy commitments and developments around the national agenda, at community level, as a way of then also drawing communities into decision making on critical development issues.

from femLINKpacific

Gender and ICT issues at Women's World Congress, Ewha University, Seoul, Korea, June 19-24

Gender and ICT advocates from all world regions joined some 2,000 other women activists at the Women's Worlds Congress 2005, -the 9TH International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women-, held at Ewha University in Seoul, Korea, June 19-24. more>>

Onsite reports from 49th CSW:

Governments urged to commit to BPFA to achieve MDGs
Feminists call for change in the culture of patriarchy
Struggles of the global women's movement reviewed
Week 2: Resolutions supported by Asia Pacific NGOs
Two-part celebration of International Women's Day
Statement of the Linkage Caucus
49th CSW passes ten resolutions but fails to conclude meeting

The Little Purple Book NEW!
The Little Purple Book entitled Voices 2005 & Beyond: Asia-Pacific Women’s Lobbying Document for Beijing + 10 highlights pressing factors that have arisen in the last decade, such as globalisation, growing migrant labour, conflict and militarisation, and technology-mediated trafficking of women.
download now

Asia-Pacific NGO Forum quoted at the New York MDG Meeting

“The attainment of the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) depends on women’s empowerment and gender equality as spelled out in the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discmrination Against Women (CEDAW).”

Read more...

Big Purple Book is Out!

This purple book contains the proceedings of the Asia-Pacific NGO Forum on Beijing +10
held in 2004 at the Mahidol University, Salaya, Nakornpathom, Thailand. The contents
represent the inputs, sharing, dialogues and debates among the more than 700 persons present.

Download PDF File

Amelia was a force in our lives, we would not be where we are today without meeting someone like her in our early days as students and being drawn into work on issues that, for us, could have always remained academic, without her leadership and noisy argumentative debate. It helped that she was fun, dynamic, sponsored dinners and half meals, in exchange for our writing and involvement in her committees. Our personal and professional development too, would have been very different, if we had not had the good fortune to meet this person, here in Suva, in the Young Women’s Christian Association (of all places), and to forever have our perspectives, book learning and understanding challenged by her. She provided us with practical experience, an organization to float in and out of, and her office was an extraordinary place enabling us to feel centred in our activism – whether it be on Fiji, or women’s rights, colonialism or nuclear testing. <Click to continue

From Anne Walker

On June 2, 2005, a woman of extraordinary energy, passion and ability who dedicated her life to
promoting peace, democracy and social justice, died in Suva, Fiji, at the age of 63. <Click to continue