UNIFEM announced yesterday the launching of a month-long online discussion forum on “Women in Power and Decision Making.” This is just one segment four-month series of United Nations online discussions organized and hosted by WomenWatch. This series was launched as a central component of the fifteen-year review of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action in 1995.

Fifteen years ago, the topic of Women in Power and Decision-Making was central to the Platform for Action. It was noted that despite a large democratization movement across many regions of the world, women remained seriously underrepresented, and had made barely any progress in attaining political power. There was also concern that they had not achieved the target endorsed by the Economic and Social Council of having 30 percent women in decision-making positions by the year 1995. Since that time, the five and ten-year reviews have pointed to significant achievements, but also many challenges of great concern.

UNIFEM is launching this online discussion in the hopes that individuals, groups, and networks around the world will share their own knowledge, experiences, ideas, and apprehensions. They see these voices and collective experiences as valuable contributions to the question many are asking 15 years after the Platform for Action: since Beijing, “what has worked and what has not in increasing the number and effectiveness of women in power and positions of decision making around the world?”

You can visit http://www.unifem.org/news_events/story_detail.php?StoryID=1013 to sign up and join in on the online discussion. The discussion will run for four weeks and delve into four major issues: Achievements (20 – 27 January,) Gaps and Challenges (28 – 4 February,) Future Actions (5 – 12 February), and Summary of the Discussions (12-18 February). For information about the entire series of online discussions, please visit: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/beijing15/.