ASEAN Chief stresses gender equality in building community

ASEAN Secretary General Le Luong Minh has affirmed the importance of gender equality in achieving the ASEAN Community by 2015.

“The spirit of promoting gender equality should be an integrated part of ASEAN’s policies and programmes towards the ASEAN Community. The goal of gender equality should be central to all three pillars of economics, politics–security and socio-culture,” Minh said in his opening remarks at the Gender Mainstreaming Training launched at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, Indonesia on February 13.

The three-day course was held for over 80 ASEAN Secretariat staff by the ASEAN Secretariat and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) Office.

It aimed to enhance knowledge on the elements of gender mainstreaming approaches and strategies and assist the staff to gain practical skills on measuring organisational capacities to address gender issues and mainstream gender perspective in their lines of work.