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Women's Leadership Workshop

Empowering Women in Radiocommunications Negotiations

The 2015 Radiocommunication Assembly (RA) and the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) are major events for the Union. Both events have witnessed over 15 years of growing synergy between female delegates, with credit to the annual Women's breakfast.

To build on this successful initiative ITU is partnering with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) to organize the first Women's Leadership Workshop for women delegates accredited to the RA and WRC.

Communiqué: Developing women’s leadership skills at WRC-15 ITU and UNITAR pioneer all-day workshop for female delegates

Agenda

Practical Details

Date and time: Sunday 1 November 2015 - 10:00 – 16:00
Venue: ITU Headquarters, ICT Discovery, Geneva, Switzerland (entrance: Montbrillant Building, The Montbrillant entrance (2 rue de Varembé).
Languages: The workshop will take place in English language, with some exercises to be facilitated in both English and French. Please note that no simultaneous interpretation will be provided during the event.

Opening remarks by:

Mr François Rancy, Director, ITU Radiocommunication Bureau
Mr Nikhil Seth, UN Assistant Secretary General and UNITAR Executive Director

Panel Discussion: Women's Leadership in Technology

The final session of the Workshop will be dedicated to a panel discussion, aiming to highlight the experience of leading women from science and technology fields. The panel will consist of a keynote address from each panel member, followed by an interactive dialogue with the female delegates participating in the workshop.

Speakers for the panel discussion:

H.E. Ms Yvette Stevens, Ambassador of Sierra Leone
Dr Elena Manaenkova, Assistant Secretary-General, World Meteorological Organization
Dr Veena Rawat, Senior Spectrum Advisor, Government and Regulatory Affairs GSMA
Dr Whitney Lohmeyer, Communications Systems and Regulatory Engineer, OneWeb
Ms Julie N. Zoller, Senior Deputy Coordinator and Director of Multilateral Affairs, U.S. Department of State, former ITU RRB Member

Closing remarks by:

Mr Houlin Zhao, Secretary-General, ITU

Registration
Contact
Links and Resources

Registration and selection of participants:
The workshop will be open to a maximum of 30 female delegates who are registered to RA/WRC 2015.

Registration will be on a first-come, first-served basis via the online registration form until 26 October 2015.

The registration is closed.

For any queries please contact: gendergroup@itu.int

ITU work on gender: http://www.itu.int/en/action/gender-equality/Pages/default.aspx
More about UNITAR Women Leadership programme here: http://www.unitar.org/mdp/portfolio-projects/3640
https://www.unitar.org/womens-leadership-programme-launched-high-level-panel-women-diplomacy
WRC-15 World Radiocommunication Conference 2015 2-27 NOVEMBER 2015 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
RA-15 Radiocommunication Assembly 2015 (RA-15) 26-30 OCTOBER 2015 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

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Background Note

Bringing more women at the ITU negotiation table
ITU Gender Equality and Mainstreaming Policy (GEM) underpin the Union's commitment to gender equality which should be reflected in all negotiation, decision-making and planning processes by:

Integrating a gender perspective in negotiation and decision-making processes
Ensuring a better gender balance in decision making bodies at the secretariat and delegation level
Using gender-neutral language in ITU documents

ITU Secretary General, Mr Houlin Zhao also recently joined the Geneva Gender Champions Initiative and committed the ITU to undertaking two measureable actions to advance gender equality in ITU conferences and meetings.

About UNITAR

About UNITAR and the Women's Leadership Programme
UNITAR's new Women's Leadership Programme is working with UN Women and across the UN System, with the mandate to build skills, knowledge and capacities of government officials accredited to the United Nations and its entities.

Following UN Women's Step it Up for Gender Equality call for Planet 50:50 by 2030, the Women's Leadership Programme seeks to address the gender imbalance that exists on delegations to multilateral conferences under the United Nations and will seek to promote gender equality and women's full and effective participation and leadership at all levels of political life.

With the celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the definition of the new Sustainable Development Goals, the Women's Leadership Programme seeks to build upon the opportunity that 2015 presents to promote women's empowerment and leadership in economic, social and political development.

Since the creation of the Women's Leadership Programme, workshops have taken place for female delegates to the WMO Congress in Geneva and the High Level Political Forum in New York. Both workshops were successful in providing a positive, empowering and engaging environment and evaluation results emphasized the need and demand for future workshops to build on the learning and personal-development achieved.