The Council of Ministers for Women of Central America will hold a meeting with agencies and international entities with the objective to align and harmonize international cooperation on gender issues for the region’s Central American Integration System (SICA).

As 2009 is drawing to an end, UN-INSTRAW would like to take the opportunity to wish you all a happy new year.

UN-INSTRAW trained a group of eight young women and men to facilitate the debate at the Gender Film Festival organized by the Gender Interagency Group of the UN System in the Dominican Republic in coordination with the First Lady (DEPRIDAM) and the State Secretary for Women (SEM). The festival was held in commemoration of the International day for Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Media professionals in Algeria participated in a training session on the issue of women’s political participation, introducing a gender approach in the media to promote a more equal media treatment of women politicians.

"To participate is to decide. Let’s engage in political life for more equality.” This was one of the slogans presented by students for a large scale awareness campaign in the Maghreb area, as part of the UN-INSTRAW and CAWTAR project "Strengthening women's leadership and participation of women in politics and decision-making process in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia."

On 18 December 1979, 30 years ago, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was approved. One of the articles of the convention highlights women’s participation in politics at all levels of society. To commemorate this date, UN-INSTRAW is launching a tool to help authorities at the local level to evaluate the extent to which they have been able to incorporate a gender focus into their work and to fulfill their commitments to women’s political rights.