KIGALI, Rwanda — The two-day Commonwealth Women’s Forum (CWF 2022), which is held in parallel with the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), will take place in Kigali starting today at the Serena Hotel.

Delegates at CWF 2022 will discuss solutions to pressing challenges affecting women and girls across the Commonwealth and ensure that the 54 member countries have robust policies and programmes to meet gender equality targets by 2030.

Proposed solutions from the forum will inform Commonwealth leaders’ discussions and decisions on ending gender inequality — ultimately involving women at the highest level of policymaking to address challenges directly affecting them.

The forum will officially begin with a plenary reflecting on gender equality. This will be followed by a session dubbed ‘Women in Leadership: Beyond Numbers’.

This afternoon the forum will focus on ‘Women’s Economic Empowerment: Breaking Barriers.’ In this session delegates will consider the challenges affecting women’s economic empowerment and opportunities for their full and equal participation in economic life.

In one of the most eagerly anticipated sessions delegates will focus on ‘Engaging Men and Boys: Ending Violence Against Women and Girls’.

This session will look at programmes dedicated to engaging men and boys as agents of positive change and examines the critical role data plays in understanding violence against women and girls (VAWG) and its wider impact. It will provide a platform to present the Secretariat’s project on the economic cost of VAWG, which utilises a new framework that looks on the impact on various sectors in the economy and the State.

CWF 2022 will culminate on Tuesday with the presentation of the outcomes.