What is the Asia Pacific Women, Faith and Development Alliance?
By way of background The Asia Pacific Women, Faith and Development Alliance is modelled on the pioneering Women, Faith and Development Alliance (WFDA) - a unique partnership of internationally focused faith, development, and women's organisations dedicated to engendering global efforts to reduce poverty by increasing political will and action to increase investments in women's and girls' empowerment around the world.
The purpose of The Asia Pacific Women, Faith and Development Alliance is to reinvigorate the energies of the women, faith and development communities and ensure greater effectiveness by exploring opportunities for new partnerships and collaborations. It will also work to engage and attract new partners from the private sector to the common goal of ending poverty by empowering women.
The Asia Pacific Women, Faith and Development Alliance will be launched at the Asia Pacific Breakthrough: The Women, Faith and Development Summit to End Global Poverty, which will take place in Melbourne on December 1st to 3rd, 2009 on the eve of the Parliament of the World's Religions.
Asia Pacific Breakthrough Declaration
We, leaders representing communities of women, faith, and development, commit ourselves today at the historic Asia Pacific Breakthrough Summit to join with one another in new ways to create a world in which women and men, boys and girls, everywhere can share equally in the care of their families, the right to dignity and freedom from violence, the opportunities for productive livelihoods, the decision-making that affects their lives, and the joys of the human experience.
We know that women and girls must be at the centre of efforts to end global poverty and together we commit ourselves and call upon individuals, organisations and governments everywhere to increase resources for the advancement of women and girls.
We commit ourselves to examining our own histories, policies, practices, and programs to ensure that we are responding to the voices of women and girls and shaping our work to engage them fully as creative agents of change in their own lives.
We claim our responsibility and our power to create a different world where women and men, boys and girls can grow into their full humanity.
As we gather here today, young and old, from all parts of the world, representing all races and all faiths, we make this promise to the children of today and the future:
No longer will a woman fear for her safety, no longer will a girl be shuttered from a school, no longer will a mother die in childbirth, no longer will a wife bear the mark of her husband’s hand upon her face, no longer will a single mother choose between food or shelter for her children, no longer will a woman be denied her right to have a job or be elected to lead her community, no longer will we deny the dreams and hopes of millions because they were born a girl.