Regional Meeting Cum Working for Representatives of National Cooperative Women's Committee/ National Coordinators of Cooperatives Women's Activities- Sri lanka 1982

Abstract

In July 1975 the ICA ROEC in collaboration with the Cooperative Union of Malaysia held a Regional Conference in Kuala Lumpur on “ The Role of Women in Cooperative Development”. Since then much has been done in many countries in the Region to enable women to play an increasingly effective role in cooperatives. In most countries, committees have been set up at the national level, and they are now in the process of organizing the women from the base level upwards. In some countries even where the National Women’s Committees have been set up, the progress made so far is as yet not encouraging.The ICA ROEC has with the assistance of the concerned national cooperative organisations conducted two surveys to assess the situation on the role of women in cooperatives in the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Further, a pilot project on consumer education for women has been supported in Sri Lanka with the assistance of the Consumer Guilds in Sweden, the SCC/SIDA, the National Cooperative Council and the Government of Sri Lanka. Moreover, a Regional Seminar on “Enhancing Women’s Participation in Cooperatives” , was held at Galle, Sri Lanka, in September 1980 with a special focus on the pilot project, to enable participants from the region to get first hand knowledge of the experiences, methodologies and approaches of the project in Sri Lanka.