On the occasion of International Women's Day 2015, and during a panel and debate at the United Nations in New York, on the theme of “Co-operatives: Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment”, the International Co-operative Alliance Asia and Pacific Women’s Committee presented their Resource Guide for Training on Entrepreneurship Development of Women and Gender Equality.
The new resource guide is an update to the ICA-ILO-COOPNET leadership training manual published in 2005. The panel at which the Resource Guide was presented, was organized as a side event to the 59th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, 9 to 20 March 2015. Equally presented before the panel were the results of a global, joint survey entitled: "Co-operatives and women’s empowerment". The survey was carried out by the ILO and the International Co-operative Alliance.
The release of the update to the resource guide coincides with International Women’s Day 2015 and the Beijing+20 celebrations taking place in the United Nations Headquarters, March 2015.
The Resource Guide fits with Equality, the theme for the International Day of Co-operativesto be celebrated on July 4, 2015. The guide is an update to the ICA-ILO-COOPNET leadership training manual published in 2005. During the nine years since the release of the manual, thousands of cooperators have been trained and more importantly provided feed-back on the contents. The updated guide comes directly from ideas, suggestions and demands of the women themselves, filtered through their trainers to the ICA-AP Women’s Committee.
A celebratory event will take place on March 30 at the Alliance's Global Board meeting in Singapore, in which members of the Women Committee including, Ms Masako Shinbo, Chairperson Alliance's Asia-Pacific Regional Committee on Women will participate.
