Update: 2011 WLN

Dear WLN Friends and Colleagues

I hope that you have all experienced a good year since we last met.  This year, in 2011, the United States (US) is hosting all APEC meetings and, as such, is responsible for convening a high-level meeting for women.

In their role as hosts, the US has decided to adapt a new format and agenda for APEC Women and the Economy rather than the format previously established by the Women Leaders Network (WLN).  This new meeting has been endorsed by all of the APEC economies.  Therefore, this year there shall not be a WLN meeting as we have known in the past but rather a series of meetings focusing on Women in the Economy, which shall be held in San Francisco the week of September 13th.

• For details on the new structure, please refer to the attached letter from the US APEC Ambassador on the establishment of the Policy Partnership on Women and the Economy (PPWE).

• For details of the meeting, please refer to the site for the APEC Women and the Economy Summit http://www.bayareacouncil.org/WES.php .

According to the US State Department, ‘ This year, we’re doing things differently so we’re asking each economy to organize their own delegation which will include both public and private sector participants’. As such, if you are interested in participating then it is important that you find out who is the official in your economy responsible for putting together the delegations and then making your interest known to her/him. Please note that a number of the events are by invitation only which require accreditation and that if you hold a passport that requires a visa to visit the US, you may have to apply soon in order to allow for processing time.

The Women Leaders Network of APEC first met in 1996 in Manila as an independent and informal consultative group composed of representatives of the private, public, academic and civil society sectors.  It presented its original Call to Action to President Ramos of the Republic of the Philippines who then took our recommendations directly to the APEC Senior Officials and APEC Leaders. We continued to meet every year for the next 13 years at the invitation of the host economy and enlarged our original group to include indigenous and rural women. We wanted to ensure that the voices of women, especially those that had no voice, would be heard by APEC Leaders.  In excess of 7,000 women have participated in WLN over those years. As a co-founder of WLN, I am very proud of what we were able to achieve.

Many valuable friendships and connections were developed over those years, and it is my hope that we keep the dream alive, not to mention the friendships and connections that we have all enjoyed over the years.  We can use this site (apecwln.org) as the hub for continuing all those connections.

• Subscribe by e-mail to apecwln.org.  By subscribing, you will be auto-notified of new developments as they are posted here.  Note that this e-mail subscription link is also available on the sidebar of the apecwln.org homepage (look for SUBSCRIBE BY E-MAIL).

• Share and broadcast this post to ten or more WLN contacts you have made through the years so that those valuable connections are not lost.  At the end of this post are social widgets which you can easily use to do this, whether you prefer to e-mail or to post on your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc walls.

• We are expanding this site to include a directory so we can have access to resources and expertise amongst ourselves, as well as a facility to share dreams and aspirations, experiences, thoughts, concerns and businesses.  Sign up here if you wish to be advised when these new features become available.  As an initial step, this post is open to your comments.

I look forward to keeping in touch and up to date.

Warmest regards,
Andrina Lever