- A key note address in Japan by Dr. Sepali Kottegoda Chair, Asia Pacific Women’s Watch

I would like to express my sincere thanks to the National Women’s Education Centre of Japan for inviting me to give this Key Note Address. It is an honour not only for me as Director of the Women and Media Collective, Sri Lanka, but also to the women of the Asia-Pacific region whom I represent as Chair of the Asia-Pacific Women’s Watch.

As communities in earthquake and tsunami-hit Japan still struggle to rebuild their lives, the experiences and ideas I share with you today might highlight the fact that they are not alone in this arduous endeavour. It is an immense task that confronts us, wherever we are living, to rebuild our disaster-affected communities and countries. One of the primary concerns for us, as women, is to ensure that our voices and our concerns are integrated into all the mechanisms and measures that are put in place in these processes of recovery.

Source: UN Women

Collaboration between the two agencies dates back to 2008, when the initial cooperation agreement was signed between UNIFEM (now UN Women) and the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), with the aim of harnessing tourism’s potential to contribute to gender equality and women’s empowerment. A concrete result of this partnership, the Global Report on Women in Tourism 2010, was launched at ITB Berlin in March 2011 and represents a landmark effort to comprehensively map women’s participation in the tourism sector. Confirming that tourism can provide tangible opportunities for women’s empowerment, it also highlights remaining barriers and provides recommendations to stakeholders to redress gender inequalities throughout tourism.

Source: UN Women

The UN Secretary-General’s annual report to the Security Council on women and peace and security has been released ahead of the Open Debate. The report analyzes progress in implementing Security Council resolution 1325, which was passed in 2000, along with related commitments on women, peace and security. It is based on contributions from 38 Member States, four regional organizations and 27 entities of the United Nations system.

Source: UN Women

UN Women has launched a new e-learning course on women, peace and security in partnership with the Peace Operations Training Institute (POTI). The course was developed in collaboration with the Economic Commission for Africa and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean with the sponsorship of the Government of Norway. It is intended to advance understanding of the core components of the UN Security Council’s resolutions on women and peace and security and promote their regional and national implementation.