WLN Statement 2003
WOMEN LEADERS NETWORK MEETING 2003
July 30 – August 3, 2003
Statement and Recommendations
We, the Women Leaders Network (WLN) from APEC economies came together for the eighth time in
- Knowledge Creation, Sharing and Management through Partnerships
- Women’s Human Security
- Women’s Entrepreneurship
WLN recommendations
- promote fair and equitable access to financial services, particularly for women led micro and small enterprises;
- support and provide incentives for comprehensive programs that empower women led micro-enterprises;
- facilitate the collection and dissemination of more extensive data on women’s contribution to the informal sector;
- grant WLN guest status in the Microenterprise Subgroup of the SME Working Group;
- institute family friendly policies and working conditions, such as affordable child and elder care options and flexible hours, to help women and men balance family life and career;
- recognize the care services, in which women predominate, as important for social and economic progress. Empower women care workers with good economic and social benefits, higher levels of professional training and better access to business development opportunities and programs in the care-giving field;
- recognize women homemakers’ contributions as important for social and economic progress and empower them through comprehensive measures, such as capacity building and tax incentives;
- develop and implement a gender responsive ICT plan to empower women, which addresses both urban and rural needs, such as, providing affordable computers, building information infrastructure, education and training in ICT, and roadmaps for SME use of ICT;
- advocate international sex disaggregated ICT indicators to the International Telecommunications Union;
- ensure that women fully participate at all levels in the development of science and technology and have full access to and benefit from science and technology.
In accordance with APEC 2003’s themes and sub-themes, the Women Leaders Network would like to make the following recommendations to the APEC Economic Leaders:
- facilitate and support research pertaining to women’s and gender related issues, including increase in funding for such research;
- fully implement the provisions of the APEC gender framework and ensure gender responsive collection and use of sex disaggregated data;
- address the gender dimension of human security issues, and remove barriers that prevent marginalized and displaced women from their full participation in and benefit from the economy;
- ensure that liberalization of trade and investment does not lead to violation of rights, in particular labor rights of women migrant workers and women in the informal sector, as well as rights to human security of those who are vulnerable to trafficking; and
- reinforce the commitment to the unique economic contribution of indigenous people by supporting existing and new economic partnerships.
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