Regional Forum on "Women, Gender and Co-operatives in Asia: Meeting Challenges, Exploring Opportunities"

Bangkok, Thailand, March 2001

The Regional Forum brought together 109 participants (81 women and 28 men) from the 10 nation states of Southeast Asia and from Nepal, India, and Canada. The participating key actors from government, international development agencies, civil society, co-operatives, women's organizations, business, and social development agencies examined and looked critically at the economic condition of women vis-à-vis men, and the state of gender equality in Asia in the light of the effects of globalization. The participants explored possibilities for collaboration in achieving the goals of gender equality and equity in the context of globalization.

The Forum was a follow up to AWCF's 2000 Regional Conference on "Gender Impact of Globalization of the Economy: Challenges to Co-operatives in the New Millennium." While the 2000 Regional Conference had a broader range of topics—from the effects of globalization on women's economic, social and political participation in society and in co-ops, to effects on the family—the 2001 Regional Forum had a more specific focus, that is, the issues of women's economic empowerment and gender equality in the era of globalization. The intention of focusing on these two issues as themes for the forum was to stress the importance of women's economic empowerment as a key and first step towards improvement in women's condition, and overall gender equality. As a result, there was a sharing of a range of ideas and experiences, lessons learned and best practices on women's economic empowerment and gender equality. All this served well the Forum's end-goal of enabling the participants to select from the conference’s inputs what they think can be applied to their own situations and context.

Assistance for the forum came from the ASEAN Foundation.

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