UN has key role in empowering women in post-revolutionary Middle East, experts say

[littlemissmartypants]

17 April 2013 – Amid the reverberations from popular uprisings known as the “Arab Spring,” the United Nations has a key role to play in supporting women in the Middle East by convening disparate voices and identifying new modes of cooperation, experts on women’s rights said during a “Classroom Conversation” with university students from around the world.

“What the revolutions that have been unfolding since 2011 have forced us to realize is that we have to look at the partners again,” said Azza Karam, Senior Adviser at the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), noting the vital roles of women, youth and civil society in the overthrow of standing regimes in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen.

“What we need to do is identify new voices, convene and re-evaluate our partnerships and lastly, identify new ways of working together. Which may force us to reconsider how we do development as a United Nations system,” she added.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=44686&Cr=women&Cr1=#.UXBwtLXviSo