The unveiling ceremony of the Exchange and Training Base of Global Women's Development Cooperation was held in China Women's University (CWU, also ACWF Executive Leadership Academy), in Beijing on April 29. Huang Xiaowei, Vice-President and First Member of the Secretariat of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), and Luo Zhaohui, Chairman of the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA), attended. They unveiled the base together and addressed the event. Siddharth Chatterjee, UN Resident Coordinator in China, and Smriti Aryal, UN Women's Country Representative in China, delivered speeches.

China has always advocated and practiced the advancement of global women's development.
Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, has taken the lead in raising China's four-point proposal on promoting gender equality and women's all-round development worldwide. Huang noted, by working with all sectors to advance global women's development, the base will serve as a concrete measure in the implementation of the guiding principles of Xi's important speeches.

The ACWF will continue to deepen Chinese women's communications with women from other countries and make efforts to build the base into a platform that empowers and enhances women's development, and promotes their exchanges and cooperation. The federation will also make new and greater contributions to helping women walk to the frontline of the era, accelerating the fulfillment of gender equality, and building a community with a shared future for mankind, Huang added.

Luo said CIDCA will work with various partners to improve training provided to women, support women as they try to gain decent employment and achieve economic independence, and raise women's status. By launching "small yet smart" programs, CIDCA will help safeguard women's rights and interests, and help them find happiness and achieve benefits in development. Luo added CIDCA will support the United Nations playing its leading role in women's development, and CIDCA will do its part in solving new challenges, such as narrowing the gender-based gap in digital field.

Luo said CIDCA will allocate more resources to support the newly founded base (at CWU) as it plays a more important role in the advancement of women's cooperation, exchanges and training worldwide, to promote women's progress, release women's potentials, and help create a more equal and sustained future and a community with a shared future for mankind.

During their speeches, Chatterjee and Aryal, on behalf of UN agencies in China and UN Women's Office in China, respectively, congratulated organizers on the formal establishment of the base. They expressed the UN agencies' willingness to further implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of UN, advance gender equality and women's empowerment, and enhance communications and cooperation to promote global women's development.

Zhang Dongmei, Vice-President and Member of the Secretariat of the ACWF, presided over the ceremony. Other attendees included Zhao Fengtao, CIDCA Vice-Chairman; Charviakou Aliaksandr, Ambassador of Belarus to China; Analisa Low, Ambassador of Trinidad and Tobago to China; Huda Ali Shareef, Charge d'Affaires of the Embassy of Maldives in China; officials from the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, the Party School of the Central Committee of CPC (also National Academy of Governance), the ministries of Commerce and Foreign Affairs, and the discipline inspection team dispatched by the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission to the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. Also in attendance were representatives from relevant embassies and international organizations' offices in China. The attendees visited CWU's history hall and women's library.

Members of a postgraduate class for women officials from developing countries attended with Chinese students. They gave performances that featured Chinese culture. A representative from Iraq, Hawzhin Mohammed Rasul, delivered a speech.

The Seminar on Global Women's Development and Cooperation, with the theme "Strengthening Capacity Building and Promoting Global Women's Development Cooperation," was held after the ceremony.

Organizers noted CWU (ACWF Executive Leadership Academy) has offered short-term training sessions to women officials from developing countries since 2013. The university has organized an international postgraduate program featuring "women leadership and social progress" for students of master's degrees since 2016. To date, approximately 1,300 students from 100 countries have participated in the training sessions and/or program.

(Source: Women Voice)