MDGs 6th Round Table in Danang, Vietnam ON THE EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN April 22-23, 2010 The 6th Regional Round Table on MDG+10 and Beijing+15 was held in Danang, Vietnam on April 22-23 of 2010. The Round Table was convened on Peace Boat while the ship, carrying approximately 1,000 passengers, was docked in the port of Danang as part of it 69th Global Voyage for Peace. The Vietnam Peace and Development Foundation (VPDF) hosted the event, and participants included Parliamentarians, Government, NGO and Civil Society Organization representatives from the following countries: Brunei, Cambodia, China, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, as well as representatives from the Asian Institute of Technology (ARCMDG-Thailand), AICESIS (France), UBITAR, AIFOMD (Switzerland), and survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. After their deliberations, the following DANANG DECLARATION was issued in view of the upcoming July 2010 Annual Ministerial Review (AMR) of the ECOSOC in New York. WE, THE PARTICIPANTS OF THE DANANG 6TH ROUND TABLE ON BEIJING+15 AND ON THE MDG+10, RECOGNIZING that the Beijing Platform of Action adopted in 1995 constitutes the benchmark for any future progress in gender equality and the empowerment of women world wide and that, 15 years later, most of its goals and objectives remain to be achieved and to be met in various countries of Asia, as concluded in the 2010 Secretary-General’s Report entitled “Keeping the Promises” (A/64/665); CONSIDERING that the 2000 Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals (2001) and the 2005 Islamabad Declaration by UN-NGO-IRENE have outlined the centrality of women in the achievement of the MDGs and have pointed to the importance of women and of mothers in the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, illiteracy and gender disparity in education, pandemics, maternal and child mortality, gender discrimination, and have stressed the importance of women’s empowerment and of their role in partnerships in development and environmental sustainability; Read More