{{The Rwandan Parliament will host the Women in Parliaments (WIP) 2014 Summer Summit from 1-3 July. }}
Participants from 45 different countries will gather in Kigali to study Rwanda’s success in female political empowerment and discuss the need for more women in politics worldwide.
The theme of the summit is ‘The Spirit of Women in Parliaments: Advancing Society’.
Speaking about why Rwanda has prioritised female empowerment, Speaker of Rwanda Parliament/Chamber of Deputies, Donatille MUKABALISA, said that in many ways the rapid advance in gender equality in Rwanda was hastened by necessity.
“Of the survivors of the genocide, 70 per cent were women. They had no choice but to take the lead in healing a broken and fractured society. Rwanda needed everyone to come together to ensure an inclusive reconstruction process and guarantee that genocide would never happen again,” she said.
“In formulating the 2003 constitution, it was decided that all decision making organs must have a quota of at least 30 per cent of women. This has been easily exceeded in every election since.
In September of last year, national elections for the Chamber of Deputies saw women take 64% of seats – the highest level of female representation of any country in the world. We are happy to share this success stories with our colleagues by hosting the WIP Summer Summit,” she added.
During the summit, the MDG Advocacy Group, co-chaired by President Paul Kagame and Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway, will join participants for a joint session on the post-2015 Development Agenda.
Attendees will also discuss topics such as gender balance in politics and its role in societal change and the impact of constitutions and legislation in establishing gender equality and women empowerment.
The WIP Summer Summit 2014 will give participants first hand insights into Rwandan society, built on the values of gender equality and female social, economic and political empowerment.
Participants will meet with ministers, parliamentarians, community and business leaders and academics. They will make also field visits to talk with Rwandan women who run projects and businesses.
On Friday, 4 July 2014, all participants will be invited to take part in the official celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the Liberation Day of Rwanda at Amahoro Stadium in Kigali.
The Women in Parliaments Global Forum is an independent, international and non-partisan foundation established with the purpose of advancing society by building a network of Women in Parliaments. It is the only global forum for all female parliamentarians.
WIP endeavours to find ways to address global challenges by using the collective experience of Women in Parliaments across the world.
During the last year’s WIP Summit, President Kagame was given the WIP Leadership Award in Closing the Gender Gap.
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