First ladies summit of RSC-AP from February 10

The third summit of first ladies of Regional Steering Committee Asia Pacific (RSC-AP) will be held on February 10-12. It was finalised in the fourth preparatory meeting for the summit here on Thursday.
The meeting chaired by the first lady, Begum Sehba Musharraf reviewed necessary arrangements for the summit. Nilofar Bakhtiar, Advisor to Prime Minister on Women Development, Social Welfare and Special Education was also present on the occasion.
Begum Sehba in her opening remarks said Pakistan was elected in September 2003 to host the third summit of RSC-AP once in its tenure.
"The summit is a showcasing in whatever the member countries achieved for the empowerment of women," she said.
Begum Sehba said main theme for the summit is 'rural women and government, making a difference' whereas the two sub-themes are 'political empowerment of rural women as means of alleviating poverty' and 'micro credit for the economic empowerment of rural women'. Pakistan has already been successfully implementing these themes, she added.
Chief co-ordinator and Additional Secretary MoWD, Suhail Safdar gave presentation about the arrangements regarding the summit.
RSC-AP was formally established on September 5, 1995 in Beijing in conjunction with the fourth world conference on women. The members of RSC-AP are the first ladies who are wives of heads of states or governments in the Asia Pacific region.
The main function of the RSC-AP is to co-ordinate and mobilise all efforts and commitment for the implementation of Geneva Declaration at regional levels.
Other representation, include the preparation of regional plans of actions, monitoring of the progress in the implementation of summit's recommendations.
It is also responsible for the organisation of periodic meeting, for evaluation of activities for rural women at regional levels. Current members of the RSC-AP include Pakistan, India, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakstan, Mongolia, Maldives, Uzbekistan, Malaysia, China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Tonga, Australia and Papua New Guinea.