NGO women from all over the Asia Pacific will meet on October 22-24 in Manila to take stock, celebrate gains and reflect on the how far they have come to meet the objectives, vision and spirit of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action 15 years after the United Nations conference on women.

“Women will share their successes and failures in advancing gender equality and human rights,” said Irene M. Santiago, chair and chief executive officer of the Mindanao Commission on Women.  “They will also look at the new challenges facing women such as the global financial crisis, peace and security, and climate change.”

Santiago will speak at panel on the “Women and Peace”. She will join other distinguished women leaders from Asia Pacific, namely, Dr. Massouda Jalal of Afghanistan and Mu Sochua of Cambodia.  Jalal was the only woman candidate in the Afghan presidential election in 2004 while Mu Sochua was formerly the Minister of Gender Equality and a staunch member of the Cambodian opposition.

With the theme “Weaving wisdom, confronting crises, forging the future,” theAsia Pacific NGO Forum on Beijing+15 will be held at the Miriam College in Katipunan, Quezon City.

It will be recalled that Santiago, who is Davao City-based, was the executive director of the NGO Forum on Women in Beijing ‘95, the parallel nongovernment to the UN Fourth World Conference on Women.

About 30,000 women and men crossed ethnic, religious, national and linguistic lines to participate in the NGO forum. It was considered a milestone in the women’s movement not only because of the sheer number of women who attended it but also because, for the first time, grassroots women met with international leaders to forge a vision of a shared future.

At the Manila forum, Mindanao Commission on Women will conduct workshops on Mothers for Peace organizing, the implementation of the Gender and Development Code (jointly sponsored by Davao City and Quezon City), and mobilizing the youth for peace.

The Manila forum is part of preparatory activities around the world for the meeting in February 2010 of the UN Commission on the Status of Women which is the formal body assessing the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action.