The recent series of international Leaders’ Summits produced 3 comprehensive statements with observations, data, declarations and commitments.  It’s always interesting to perform a gender analysis on these documents to assess how influential the international women's policy machinery has been in impacting the focus of the leaders’ debates, decisions and conclusions.  It’s telling how far you have to read before women or gender is mentioned, given we are more than 50% of the population.

The Declaration of the big international G20 Summit in Bali first mentions women at paragraph 46 out of 52 – a single paragraph.  Two others mention gender.

The Declaration of the regional Asia Pacific APEC meeting in Bangkok mentions women at paragraph 19 out of 23 – again, a single paragraph.

Women have much more of a focus in the Statement of the more local ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in Cambodia, with paragraphs 19, 20 and 83 out of 106 specific to women and additional mentions in several other paragraphs.

The G20 and APEC statements suggest women’s organisations need to step our international advocacy but the ASEAN focus is reassuring.  This is where BPW Australia can have the most impact.