Resource center

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WEDO works on a range of cross-cutting issues—from climate change and natural resource management, to global governance and finance and UN reform—toward three interlinked goals:Research and raising awareness, fostering and facilitating networks and campaigns, and building capacity and training—with women and women's organizations, gender advocates, government and UN actors, and many others—comprise strategies to meet WEDO's goals. While WEDO works at the international level primarily, it supports regional and national stakeholders, networks and governments to turn policy commitments on gender equality into action—striving to improve the lives of women and men around the world.

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In 1996, Lebanon ratified, with reservations, an international covenant regarding women's rights known as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. This Convention sets out, in a comprehensive, legally binding form, internationally accepted principles on the rights of women. It further commits States Parties to take all appropriate measures, to ensure the full development and advancement of women and to guarantee them the enjoyment of the fundamental rights and freedoms to which they are entitled, on a basis of equality with men. Moreover, the Convention requires that Governments work to eliminate discrimination against women in public life as well as in private life. Indeed, according to the Convention, women must be as free as men to make choices not only in political and legal sphere, but also in such areas as marriage, the home and family life in general.

To implement women's rights, as stated in the Convention, the establishment of official and non-governmental monitoring mechanisms (national and international) helps ensure that goals are being reached and that legal rights and duties of women are recognized, understood and enforced.

The Lebanese government submitted, in 1999, its initial report regarding the progress made on the implementation of the Convention in its country, to the international monitoring treaty body known as the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against women (CEDAW Committee). Non-governmental organizations are also encouraged to submit a parallel report in conformity with the guidelines set by the CEDAW Committee.

In this respect, the Lebanese NGO Forum, an umbrella organization of various NGOs distributed geographically throughout the Lebanese territory has set a permanent monitoring mechanism entitled Women's Rights Monitor.

This project aims at helping NGOs monitor women's rights and implement the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in Lebanon by establishing a platform for co-ordination that will, at the national and regional levels:

- Provide information about the Convention and the CEDAW Committee

- Provide guidelines in view of helping NGOs to write their report to the CEDAW Committee

- Establish a set of baseline data regarding women's rights in Lebanon in accordance with the guidelines of the CEDAW

- Elaborate a permanent report regarding women's situation in Lebanon, based on the compiled data

- Establish a bibliography on the subject of women's rights and facilitate the exchange of information and documentation

- Provide a mailing list of participating NGOs

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The Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) is an international, feminist, membership organization committed to achieving gender equality, sustainable development and women's human rights. A dynamic network of women and men around the world, AWID members are researchers, academics, students, educators, activists, business people, policy-makers, development practitioners, funders, and more.
AWID's mission is to strengthen the voice, impact and influence of women's rights advocates, organizations and movements internationally to effectively advance the rights of women.

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The AWO is an intergovernmental organization established under the umbrella of the League of Arab States and headquartered in Egypt. It emerged from the Cairo Declaration issued by the First Arab Women Summit which convened in Cairo in November 2000 in response to a call by H.E. Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak, Egypt's First Lady and which was co-organized by the National Council for Women in Egypt, Hariri Foundation in Lebanon and the League of Arab States. The agreement came into effect in March 2003.
The AWO aims at:
Empowering Arab women and building their capacities to promote progress of Arab societies.
Raising awareness of the necessity of engaging women as equal partners in societal development.
Coordinating Arab efforts in order to foster women empowerment and elevate awareness of their vital role in society.

Organisation website:
Association profile available in 3 languages. ( English, Arabic and French). In brief: "Lebanese Institute for Economic and Social Integrated development) is a Lebanese association born in 1986. Since 1988, it has a legal status under the Lebanese law on associations.
The ILDES, being an NGO with non-lucrative aim, is interested in the Lebanese population displaced from its places of origin by the wars that devastated Lebanon from 1975 to 1990.
Its mission is to contribute to a return to the conviviality and inter-community life that prevailed in Lebanon before the wars (1975-1990), and which constituted its specificity and its great value."

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eWomenNetwork, is widely recognized as the Premier Women's Business Network in North America. In brief : "We have a dynamic and diversified culture that celebrates the brilliance of women entrepreneurs, business owners and corporate professionals."

Organisation website:
The Institute of Development Studies (IDS) is a leading global charity for international development research, teaching and communications.
IDS was founded in 1966 and enjoys an international reputation based on the quality of its work and its commitment to applying academic skills to real world challenges. Its purpose is to understand and explain the world, and to try to change it – to influence as well as to inform.

Organisation Website : portal in english in brief : "ADR's mission is to empower the marginalized and help them make a better living through economic and social development projects.
Our specific objectives are:
Give access to training, tools, information and financial services.
Give better access to labor market and help to set income generating projects.
Encourage partnership and decentralized cooperation.
Projects are designed and implemented according to the wishes and needs of the local population. "

Organisation website:
Al-Haq is an independent Palestinian non-governmental human rights organisation based in Ramallah, West Bank. Established in 1979 to protect and promote human rights and the rule of law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), the organisation has special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

Al-Haq documents violations of the individual and collective rights of Palestinians in the OPT, irrespective of the identity of the perpetrator, and seeks to end such breaches by way of advocacy before national and international mechanisms and by holding the violators accountable. The organisation conducts research; prepares reports, studies and interventions on breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law in the OPT; and undertakes advocacy before local, regional and international bodies. Al-Haq also cooperates with Palestinian civil society organisations and governmental institutions in order to ensure that international human rights standards are reflected in Palestinian law and policies. The organisation has a specialised international law library for the use of its staff and the local community.

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Womenwatch is the central gateway to information and resources on the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women throughout the United Nations system, including the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), the United Nations Secretariat, regional commissions, funds, programmes, specialized agencies, and academic and research institutions. The portal contains a directory of resources on selected topics including the critical areas of concern of the Beijing Platform for Action, statistics and indicators, gender mainstreaming and online clearinghouses on themes currently on the United Nations global agenda, such as climate change. Recent developments also include