The International Women's Rights Action Watch Asia-Pacific (IWRAW Asia-Pacific) was founded in 1993 as part of a global programme to monitor the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Woman (CEDAW). IWRAW aims to strengthen national groups and alliances involved with Convention-related work in their countries.

In 1997, IWRAW Asia-Pacific launched a specific programme to establish a "women's watch" to monitor the achievement of women's rights. The first step in this process was a baseline report, identifying specific obstacles to the achievement of women's rights and assessing the nature and quality of state actions being taken. UNIFEM is supporting the second step of the project, which involves a South-East Asian regional workshop to examine the implications of the information in the base-line report, the need for additional information, ways of utilising the information collected, and evaluation of the project.

The workshop will be held in Kuala Lumpur 2-5 December 1998 with representatives from women's networks in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

Dated: 30Sep1998