Highlights

• Women Foreign Ministers meeting for the first summit of its kind vowed to bring a ‘women’s perspective’ to foreign policy.
• The two-day meeting, which began on Sep 21 in and brought together more than half of the world’s top women diplomats, focussed on topics such as conflict prevention, democratic growth and eliminating gender-based violence.
• On this occasion the creation of Canada’s first ambassador for women, peace and security was announced by Canada’s top diplomat Chrystia Freeland.
• The Ministers will share their takeaways from the event during meetings taking place as part of the UN General Assembly in New York in the coming week.
• The diplomatic chiefs from 17 countries promised to meet regularly — albeit informally — within the next year.
• European Union diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini, who co-led the meeting with Ms. Freeland,in addition to Ms. Freeland and Ms. Mogherini, the conference brought together Ministers from Andorra, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Croatia, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Namibia, Norway, Panama, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, South Africa and Sweden.
• At the end of the summit, a dozen of the participants symbolically placed flowers on headstones erected in a Montreal park to commemorate 14 women killed in 1989 at the Ecole Polytechnique engineering school.

The Hindu