Last June, women leaders from all parts of the world — Special Represen...

Last June, women leaders from all parts of the world — Special Representative of the SecretaryGeneral Wallström among them — met in Vilnius at a conference entitled “Women Enhancing Democracy: Best Practices” under the Lithuanian presidency of the Community of Democracies, and shared their experiences and best practices in enhancing the role of women. The Working Group on Gender Equality and Women's Rights, co-chaired by the United States of America and Lithuania, discussed, among other priority issues, women and peace and security. The conference showed that, in many parts of the world, the involvement of women is still low. Indeed, women could and should play a bigger role in human rights and security monitoring and establish early warning systems to generate information about specific threats, peace talks, donor conferences, elections and decision- making.