REPORT OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL FORUM of NGOs in OFFICIAL PARTNERSHIP WITH UNESCO

UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, 29-30 June 2015

PART 1: COMMUNİCATİON INFORMATİON

·  Representative Name: Arzu Özyol, Vice President UN for BPW International

·  Federation Name: Member of BPW Turkey

·  E-mail:

Part 2: GENERAL INFORMATION

Which UN Meeting did you attend?

Fourth International Forum of NGOs in Official Partnership with UNESCO, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, 29-30 June 2015

What are the topics in relation to this Meeting?

The topic of the Conference was The Role of Women in Fighting Poverty

Could you please explain the meeting that you attended (no more than 100 words) including key issues, importance in relation to gender equality, major outcomes and your special comments?

The Forum on “The Role of Women in Fighting Poverty” wants to show by data and hard facts from different regions of the world that not only women are both the first victims of poverty and the first ones to find survival strategies, thanks to their resilience and solidarity in the face of extreme situations, but also that women can be the agents of change insofar as the goal of the Post 2015 Development Agenda is to achieve a just, inclusive and sustainable society where women are on an equal footing with men.

The participation of BPW International to the Forum was satisfactory. 1st Vice President Membership Amany Asfour, 2nd Vice President UN Arzu Özyol, Regional Coordinator for Africa Adenike Adeyanju-Osadolor, Representative to the FAO-Rome Cristina Visconti, Alternate UN Representative Geneva Francoise Van Leeuwen, BPW-Nice Intercontinental Geraldine Crevat and Young BPW UK Sepi Roshan participated in the Forum.

There were 3 successful contributions to the Panels from BPW International. In the 1st Session, Adenike Adenyaju Osadolor presented the tool for child marriage under the title of ““The impact and prevention of early marriage”. In the second day, Amany Asfour and Sepi Roshan moderated two successfull sessions on women’s empowerment.

PART 3: LEADERSHIP ROLE

Do you intend to use your knowledge for advocacy following your UN experience? Yes

My advocacy action will be on MDG 3 for gender equality and MDG 1 for women’s empowerment and eradication of extreme poverty.

Where do you plan to realise this?

I am planning to use the information at national (Turkey) and International level via reporting, panels and discussions.

When will this be realised?

I have started to disseminate the information on this important Forum. I have prepared the report and shared it National Commission of UNESCO. Moreover, I have planned to give information about the UNESCO Forum in the framework of MDG1 and MDG 7 by my presentation in the 20th International Convention of Soroptimist International which will be realized 9-12th of July in İstanbul, Turkey.

How will this be realised?

Besides dissemination of the information through different channels, the major outcome of this Forum for BPW International was the short but productive meeting with Ms. Gülsen Corat in order to develop opportunities to strength our collaboration with UNESCO. She is the director of the Division for Gender Equality. I am still working on the concept note of our first pilot joint action in İstanbul in December 2015.

For whom and to whom

The proposed International Conference will be realized by BPW-Turkey, İstanbul UNESCO Club for Global Ethics and Sustainable Development Turkish National Commission of UNESCO, Hellenic National Commission of UNESCO, on Women Leadership in Business.

Did you contribute to the drafting of a Written or Oral UN Statement for this meeting or to the outcome document? Yes

Our permanent representative to the UNESCO Paris Marie-Claude Machon Honore submit two statements for the Forum. The first one is the statement that was prepared for contribution to the International Day of Literacy (Attachment 2) which includes the recommendations for basic education, literarcy and life long learning programs for empowerment of women in the framework of Post 2015 framework and the second one is the decleartion of International Federation of Business and Professional Women for World Environment Day (Attachment 3).

PART 4: ORGANISATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY

Sharing knowledge with other members is important to ensure that we learn from each others’ experiences. Please let us know of your intentions.

What is your plan for sharing your knowledge within BPW International?

By starting ad-hoc initiatives on gender sensitive rural development in the framework of relevant FAO Resolutions. Additionally, we continue to add important informations via our web-page under the UN Link.

Tell us briefly how this might be achieved at the different levels within BPW International:

At national level:

We will make announcement to our federations to communicate with National Commissions of UNESCO to start collaboration through pilot projects, joint events etc. I am honour to announce that Our representative to the UNESCO-Paris will reprent us in the international NGO-UNESCO forum organized by the NGO Liaison Committtee and held in Beijing from 27 to 28 July 2015and present the Peace Project of Elisa Campos who is the chair of Peace and Intercultural Understanding Committee of International Federation of Business and Professional Women.

At regional level:

We will continue to collaborate our regional coordinators in order to disseminate knowledge and information that were reached by the UN Meetings.

At international level:

We will develop written statements, oral statements, side events and share all these knowledge via web-page, presidents’ office and regional coordinators. We also encourage member-initiated pilot projects through relevant ad-hoc initiative.