Held prior to the Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meeting 2013 (CHOGM 2013) The Commonwealth People’s Forum (CPF) 2013
was held from November 10^th – 13^th in the tourist
resort of Hikkaduwa, Southern Sri Lanka. Soroptimist International Colombo club President Pat
Abayasekara and Hon. Secretary Nelun Tennekoon were requested to attend the forum on behalf of SI.

The proceedings
commenced with two pre-forum sessions. In the
first session Vijay Krishnarayn, Director of the Commonwealth Foundation gave the
delegates an overview of the Commonwealth Association, its main bodies and their functions. The session covered
the background and the run up to the compiling of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) and touched on the way forward Post 2015. The second
session covered the MDGs specifically, their success and failures, and
individual country performances. It was expressed that although the MDGs
were considered to be successful and that nearly 1
billion people had been alleviated from poverty during the last 12 years, that there
were other factors too that had contributed to this – namely the economic boom
in countries such as India and China.

The inaugural
session of the CPF2013 was held at the
Chaya  Tranz Hotel, Hikkaduwa. The
keynote address was delivered by Dr. Jamilah Mohamood of MERCY, Malaysia and was on the role of civil society in the Post-2015 Development Architecture. Dr. Mohamood emphasized the
key issues that need to be considered in framing a strategic vision for the Post 2015 Sustainability Goals. She spoke about the downsides of globalization on finance, food and fuel, and the
growing numbers of communities and individuals living on the edge. She also expressed that complex
system inspired resilience perspectives should be adopted instead of narrow development humanitarian paradigms. She ended with the quote, “where there is an
absence of international political leadership, civil society should step in to
fill the gap”.

The next
session was entitled
“Consensus, Divergence and Opportunities”. Sir Anand chaired the sessions with
three panelists, Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy, Prof. David Frosby and Mr. Martin Tsounkeu.
Dr. Coomaraswamy dealt with the successes of the MDGs, poverty alleviation and
primary education. He spoke about a
need for progress after primary education, in terms of further education, training and employment skills. This echoes Soroptimist International’s belief that education and training should take a life course approach. He also mentioned the failures in areas such as health, violence
against women and environmental sustainability. 

The case for a specific stand alone goal
for women’s socio-economic empowerment.

The above mentioned session
was conducted by Patty O’Niel of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). With her were four panelists each
representing  Asia, Africa, The Caribbean
and small island states of the Pacific. There was a
general consensus that there was a strong case for a stand alone goal for
women’s socio-economic empowerment. It was stated that there are still very few women in decision
making roles and despite quota systems being introduced, many Asian countries
have very low percentages of women in politics. It was noted that the MDGs would
have been more successful if more effort had been put into the empowerment of
women. For example an economically empowered woman would have been able to obtain health
facilities for herself and her children without being dependent on her husband.

Soroptimist International believes that by providing women and girls with information so that they can
support themselves, empowers them to be able to make sensible life decisions.

"From the Caribbean to
Africa, articulate women are working tirelessly to uplift the
status of women. Young women from the Australian
sub-continent representing indigenous people’s rights were also in attendance to play a part in having their voices heard. It was a pleasure for us to be able to participate alongside these women, also working for the rights of women and girls" said Patsy. 

For further information on where Soroptimist International stands on the Post 2015 Development Agenda please read our Post 2015 Statement and Key Asks. 

Pictures: Top left Patsy (left) and Nelun (right). Lower right – Patsy and Nelun (centre) contributing to group discussions.