ICA Asia Pacific Women Committee celebrates 25th Year in Japan

By Ms. Simren Singh

The ICA Asia and Pacific Committee on Women (Women’s Committee) is celebrating its 25th anniversary on 19 and 20 September 2023. A special event is being hosted by the Japanese Consumers’ Co-operative Union (JCCU) in Tokyo in collaboration with the Women’s Committee.

The programme on 19 September will be hybrid. On 20 September, a field visit to local cooperatives in Tokyo is arranged by the JCCU for Committee members and other guests who will be present onsite.

The present Office Bearers of the Committee are the Chairperson Ms. Chitose Arai from the JCCU and Vice-Chairperson Ms. Priti Patel from the National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI). The Secretary of the Committee is Ms. Simren Singh from ICA Asia and Pacific.

Sending off Ms Priti Patel who belongs to Gujarat, NCUI President Dileep Sanghani wrote “Best wishes to Mrs. Preetibehan Patel, Vice Chairperson of the Women’s Committee, who is visiting Japan to participate in the program organized in Japan on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Women’s Committee of the International Cooperative Alliance, Asia Pacific.”

To commemorate the 25th anniversary year, the Women’s Committee has created a special theme and tagline, “Gender Equality for a Brighter Future”.

The anniversary event is based on this theme and will be celebrated together with the Women’s Committee members and upcoming women leaders in the cooperative sector from different countries, ICA Asia and Pacific representatives, ICA members and cooperators from Japan, supporters and well-wishers of the Women’s Committee, advocates of gender equality from international organizations such as the UN Women and public officials from the Government of Japan.

The event is symbolic as the Women’s Committee will walk down memory lane and showcase significant moments and accomplishments realized over the last 25 years. It will present an avenue for Committee members to exhibit their interventions on gender equality and engage in enriching dialogues, thereby, presenting an opportunity to the guests for mutual learning.

On this occasion, a special booklet will be launched by the Committee, which among others, has compliments from different stakeholders, case studies of the exemplary work on gender equality within the cooperative sector across Asia and Pacific; and perspectives in the context of governance and law.

The event will also serve as a platform to engage in critical reflections on how the Committee could steer its direction in the future, and identify priority areas that are fast emerging and calls for action in the next 25 years.

The ICA Asia and Pacific Committee on Women is one of ten regional committees of ICA Asia and Pacific. Established in 1998, in Seoul, South Korea, the Committee promotes gender inclusion and equality in cooperatives in Asia and Pacific.

The activities of the Committee are driven with the objective of promoting gender equality in cooperatives and serve the interest and needs of women in the cooperative sector. Since its establishment, the activities of the Committee are supported by the JCCU, ICA member since 1971.

(The author is Lead Gender and Education, International Cooperative Alliance Asia and Pacific)