The General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will hold a meeting of the temporary Open-ended Working Group to prepare the draft internal regulations of the Organization for the Development of Women in the OIC Member States on 16 June 2019 in Cairo, Egypt, in cooperation with the Ministry of Women, National Solidarity and Humanitarian Action of Burkina Faso, Chair of the current session of the Ministerial Conference on Women.This meeting comes pursuant to the ministerial resolution No. 17/7-W on Establishing a Working Group to Prepare the Draft Internal Regulations of the Organization for the Development of Women adopted by the 7th session of the Ministerial Conference on the Role of Women in Development in OIC Member States held from 30 November to 1 December 2018 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
In addition to the General Secretariat, the meeting will be attended by experts from Member States and relevant international and regional institutions. Participants will discuss the preliminary draft of the internal organizational structure of the Organization for the Development of Women in the OIC Member States for presentation to the organs of the Women Development Organization at the start of their work.
On the other hand, Egypt called for a ministerial-level roundtable on “Empowering Women in Member States” to be held on June 17, 2019, with the participation of ministers in charge of women in Member States to discuss several issues related to women empowerment, chief of which is the role of women in combating extremism, women in decision-making positions, protection of women from all forms of violence, economic empowerment of women and their involvement in the financial and other fields.
The two meetings will consider ways to expedite the ratification of the statute of the Organization for the Development of Women in the OIC Member States to ensure its entry into force and the start of the organization’s work. It is worth noting that the Women’s Development Organization, based in the Arab Republic of Egypt, was established by virtue ofa resolution of the 37th Session of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs in 2010 as a specialized organization for the development and advancement of women and for building their capacities and skills in Member States. Until now, 12 States have ratified the statutes whose entry into force requires ratification by 15 States.