What does International Women's Day mean to you?
To Wilton Park, IWD allows us to mark the progress of global actors in advancing and furthering foreign policy that benefits women all over the world.
To mark International Women's Day 2016, we look back to our work on promoting the rights of women in business and politics.
But first, Wilton Park employees give their personal view on what IWD 2016 means to them #inmywords:
Programme Development Associate Tom Hoare - follow him on Twitter: @TomJHoare.
Programme Development Associate Olivia Murphy - follow her on twitter: @OliviaMurphyWP.
So, how did Wilton Park look to progress foreign policy for women in 2015?
#WeekofWomen - October 2015
Running from 26 - 30 October, Week of Women is a joint initiative established by Wilton Park, Women of the Future and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
At the climax of a week which included the Women of the Future awards ceremony and a visit to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at King Charles Street, we set out to bring together men and women from all over the world to discuss how best to encourage the next generation of women to engage and challenge traditionally male-dominated institutions, organisations and structures.
Including speakers such as Vicki Treadell, British High Commissioner to Malaysia and Catherine Mayer, Founder of the Women's Equality Party, the conference featured perspectives from Afghanistan, Burundi, Cameroon, China, Croatia, Egypt, Jamaica, Kenya, Kosovo, the Maldives, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea, Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom.
The conference reached the following key conclusions:
- Education is needed which raises awareness of women's existing rights.
- Quotas and other affirmative action are ineffective if women do not have the expertise and experience to take these opportunities
- Participants identified the advantage in sharing international perspectives and adapting these experiences to find solutions to specific cultural contexts.
You can read the report here.
#EngageandChange
Our 2015 #WeekofWomen event saw us launch our #EngageandChange campaign, where we invited FCO staff around the globe , Chevening scholars conference participants, policy makers and Wilton Park staff to share with us their one suggestion for engaging women in the economic and political debate and submit their ideas to Twitter.
This proved to be one of our most successful digital campaigns ever, with #EngageandChange still used on Twitter today in posts associated with women's empowerment.
The 2015 Marsh Award
On an annual basis, the Marsh Award celebrates the work of a Wilton Park participant whose contribution to peacemaking and peacekeeping has had the most impact on others.
Awarded annually in partnership with the Marsh Christian Trust, the 2015 award was presented Devanna de la Puente for her work preventing gender-based violence (GBV) in humanitarian crises.
Devanna spoke at our 2014 meeting on 'Disaster prevention, preparedness and response in South East Asia: maximising a gender-inclusive approach'.
The Award has given me more strength, courage and energy to continue to speak up on women and girl's rights, and to represent with more pride my work which speaks on behalf of millions of women and girls in situations of conflicts and disasters, facing risks and adversity but also many who are true leaders and amazing advocates on their rights and gender based violence, who deserve equal recognition.
The nominations process for the 2016 Marsh Award is under way and we look forward to announcing the winner soon.
What next for #EngageandChange?
Wilton Park continues to develop it's programme of work dedicated to promoting increased equality and parity for women, whilst celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.
We hope to host another #WeekofWomen event this year, as well as working with new partners on programmes that progress policy for women globally.
