JEDDAH: In preparation for the Second Ministerial Meeting on Women by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) that will take place in Cairo Nov. 24-25, 33 delegates from the group’s member states met here yesterday to finalize a draft of the action plan for the meeting.
The OIC Plan of Action for the Advancement of Women (OPAAW) is the result of the First Ministerial Conference on Women’s Role in Development that was held in Istanbul in 2006.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the OIC, said the status of women in society is an integral part of the OIC Ten Year Program of Action adopted by the Third Extraordinary Summit in Makkah in 2005. He stressed on the need to strengthen laws aimed at enhancing the advancement of women in economic, cultural, social and political fields in Muslim societies.
“Women are playing their positive and constructive roles in various spheres and fields of life,” said Ihsanoglu.
“The OIC Plan of Action for Advancement of Women started with some headlines and titles that were put forward in a document back in Istanbul,” said Khaled Elbakly, Egypt’s deputy assistant minister of foreign affairs. “Now we are working on a plan of action — how we can work as countries, governments and societies to develop the status of women.”
He also said that the OIC member states are working together in this project.
“Egypt will work hand-in-hand with other countries making use of all technical and human resources so that we could help exchange points of view, lessons learned, best strategies and programs, particularly for the implementation of the action plan,” he said. “We agreed to hold ministerial meetings every two years to review reports on where we stand from implementation and to decide next steps.”
“We expect from the Cairo ministerial conference the assurance of implementing these plans and mechanisms,” said Sira Astour, chairperson of the Syrian Com-mission for Family Affairs and head of the Syrian delegation.
Astour said that in Cairo they would also determine the best courses of action for following up and monitoring the implementation of action plans within the OIC member states.
