Amman to host second Arab Women's Summit early October

The second Women's Arab Summit will be held in Amman early October with the participation of prominent Arab women, experts and specialists to adopt an Arab strategy to activate women's role in society and confront the challenges facing the era, Kuwaiti news agency KUNA reported Monday.

The conference, organized by the supreme council of the second women's Arab summit, chaired by Queen Rania Al-Abdullah, is to discuss means to achieve an active women's participation in sustained development through correlating the society's boom with the women's rise and to overcome the obstacles facing women's participation.

About 500 participants representing 22 Arab countries are to take part in the two-day conference.

It is to discuss the report entitled "from a summit to a summit" and the mechanisms to implement an Arab strategy that would activate the Arab women's role.

The participants are to discuss a report over the main factors concerning woman's role in her society's cultural, legal, political and economic issues.

The conference's coordinator, Nancy Bakeer said that the conference will discuss the report of the accomplishments that have been achieved since the first summit, which was held in Cairo in the year 2000, and the extraordinary summit that was held in Cairo last year.

Bakeer said in a press statement Monday that about 70 specialists will discuss in workshops later this month the conference's agenda and the role of the non-governmental organizations in adopting the women's promotion strategy.

She pointed out that Cairo's declaration stressed the necessity of holding the summit regularly every two years, holding an extraordinary summit and organizing forums that would discuss the woman's relation with the law, politics, media and economy.

It also stressed the necessity to facilitate means to unite the Arab women as it is considered an essential principal for the Arab unity, ensure gender equality, support the woman's capability to harmonize between her job and family obligations.

Bakeer praised the decision reached by the Arab League council to establish an Arab women's organization under the umbrella of the Arab League, saying that the organization is considered the required base to follow-up the recommendations that will be reached by the upcoming conferences.

Several forums over the Arab women and their relation with the economy, politics and media have been held in a number of Arab states during the past two years.