The WIP Mexico Summit 2015 “Make it happen!”, co-hosted by the Women in Parliaments Global Forum (WIP) and the Mexican Senate, has concluded after 3 days of exchanges on best practices to get more women into positions of influence and power. The Summit was held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, from 7 to 9 October.
More than 200 Parliamentarians coming from 60 different countries have addressed pressing issues on the global agenda such as migration, trade, health care and sustainable development goals. Furthermore, the conference included working sessions on violence against women (organised by the Mexican Senate), disaster risk reduction (organised by UNISDR), taxation (organised by the OECD) and peace and security (organised by UN Women).
High-level speakers such as Alicia Bárcena, ECLAC Executive Secretary; Laura Chinchilla, former President of Costa Rica; Viviane Reding, former President of the European Commission; Rebeca Grynspan, Ibero-Americana Secretary General; and Susana Malcorra, Chef de Cabinet of the UN Secretary-General, contributed to the discussion to take stock of the progress made towards gender equality in politics, after 40 years of the first UN World Conference on Women (Mexico City, 1975).
The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent a message to the participants of the WIP Mexico Summit, delivered by Under-Secretary-General Susana Malcorra. Ban Ki-moon highlighted the importance of this forum and stressed that “we cannot achieve the newly adopted 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development without full and equal rights for women and girls, in law and in practice”.
During the WIP Mexico Summit, the Women in Parliaments Global Forum and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) launched the Caucus of female Parliamentarians for Disaster Risk Reduction, as the first working council within WIP. The breakfast meeting took place on the 8th of October with female Parliamentarians from Algeria, Burundi, Chile, Ecuador, Georgia, Honduras, Ireland, Kenya, Liberia, Russia, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Sweden and Thailand. This initiative aims to promote the recently adopted Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, which calls MPs to work in its implementation at all levels.
The exhibition “We need more Women in Parliaments and as political leaders because…” was also presented for the first time during the Summit. This WIP initiative aims to highlight the support of male Presidents and Prime Ministers around the world to increase the number of women in politics. 36 male leaders from across the world (Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission; Enrique Peña Nieto, President of Mexico; Paul Biya, President of Cameroon; Hwang Kyo-ahn, Prime Minister of Korea; John Key, Primer Minister of New Zealand…) have joined this campaign that will also be presented next year at the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW60) in New York.
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The final report of the WIP Mexico Summit 2015 will be available soon.
