On 11-12 April in Vilnius, Lithuania’s Presidency of the Community of Democracies held a convening meeting of the Working Group on Gender Equality.

On 11-12 April in Vilnius, Lithuania’s Presidency of the Community of Democracies held a convening meeting of the Working Group on Gender Equality. The new working group of the Community of Democracies will aim at promoting women’s skills for leadership and entrepreneurship, strengthening women’s role in the society, combating violence against women.

The convening meeting was attended by high ranking officials and gender equality experts from Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the United States, the European Institute of Gender Equality and the Nordic Council of Ministers.

It was agreed to focus the activities of the group in four areas: 1) developing women's leadership capacity; 2) promotion of women’s entrepreneurship; 3) combating domestic violence and other types of violence against women; 4) strengthening women’s role in the countries that are in conflict or have an unstable democracy.

The working group welcomes the participation of all member countries of the Community of Democracies, as well as non-governmental organizations that can contribute to its activities.

The co-chairs of the working group - Lithuania and the United States - will prepare the group’s work plan which shall be presented during the ministerial meeting of the Community of Democracies on 2-4 July in Krakow, Poland. This High Level Democracy Meeting will mark the 10th anniversary of the Community of Democracies.

The convening meeting of the Working Group on Gender Equality also made a proposition that the September 2010 Democracy Caucus meeting at the fall session of the United Nations General Assembly should be dedicated to the issues of women’s equality and the role of women in implementing the Millennium Development Goals.

Group members agreed to implement projects that fit its priority areas: leadership training for women in Afghanistan (project leader: the Netherlands), an entrepreneurship conference for women in Eastern Europe and Caucasus countries (project leaders: Finland, Lithuania, the United States), programme against human trafficking in Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine (project leader: Denmark), leadership training in Moldova and Azerbaijan (project leaders: Lithuania, the United States), leadership training in Ukraine (project leaders: Poland, Sweden, the United States), gender studies at the university level for representatives of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova (project leader: Lithuania), training and mentoring courses for women in Iran (project leader: Poland), conference on women’s leadership issues in Central Asia and Afghanistan (project leader: the United States).

Project leaders will share progress reports every six months. Final reports on the group’s activities under the Lithuanian Presidency of the Community of Democracies, as well as recommendations for future work by the group will be presented during the Vilnius ministerial meeting of the Community of Democracies in July 2011.

The discussion “Women and Leadership” that was held at Vilnius University on 12 April focused on women’s involvement in politics, the impact of their participation in legislative and executive power for the shaping of policy priorities and agenda.

The event was organized by Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Seimas (the Parliament of Lithuania), Gender Studies Centre at Vilnius University and the United States Embassy in Lithuania. It was attended by the United States’ Ambassador-At-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne S. Verveer, Sweden’s Ambassador for Democracy in development cooperation Maria Leissner, Member of Seimas Aušrinė Marija Pavilionienė, former First Lady of Poland Jolanta Kwasniewska, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Evaldas Ignatavičius.

The Community of Democracies is an intergovernmental structure. The goal of this organisation is to strengthen and consolidate democracy worldwide. Lithuania has chaired the Community, which is comprised of over 100 countries, since July 2009. The chairmanship is rotated every 2 years.

For more information on Lithuania’s Presidency of the Community of Democracies please visit http://www.mfa.lt/cod