WCS says Beijing 25+ Report Helps at the National and Global Level

Cynthia Williams

Cynthia Williams says that the information gathered from the consultations will be used to generate a report for Belize. That report, she explains, will be shared with partner agencies and government to be used to improve the lives of women and girls in Belize. As she explains, the report is also useful to secure funding for projects to support the work of the Beijing Twenty-five Plus Report.

Cynthia Williams, Executive Director, National Women’s Commission

“So, really this opportunity for the National Women’s Commission is to try to get a picture of what has happened over the last five years. But not only to get the verbal picture, to also get data and reports that have been written because often we find that it is difficult to really share the amount of work that is being done because everyone is very busy in their own sector.  The opportunity of this report is very substantive not only for the National Women’s Commission as an advisory body to Government as a body of gender equality, equity and women’s empowerment. But also for organizations to look and identify the gaps and challenges and how do we infuse ourselves so that we don’t have to develop new things or new studies. But we already know what are the gaps and how we can contribute to the work that needs to be done and it’s the same for government.   It provides us opportunities because once the countries develop and ratify the reports at the government level; these are also submitted to the international agencies. So, every five years, which will be next year, countries come back together and present these reports to say this is what we have achieved and these are the challenges. So, definitely, funding agencies are able to then identify areas where they can also provide that type of support. So, it is not only for countries to go out but funding agencies are also making invitations because we recognize that globally women and girls continue to face many challenges; in Belize, contextually maybe different from other countries but we still have a long way to  go in particular areas.”