NGO leaders, experts of gender equality and experts of development cooperation from Latvia, Sweden, Finland, Italy, Estonia, Lithuania, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan will take part in an international workshop/round table “Prevention of Gender Based Violence – Precondition for Women’s Economic Empowerment" held on the 3rd of March in Riga where 3 key topics of gender based violence: early marriages, violence in the family and human trafficking for sexual exploitation will be discussed. As a result recommendations are prepared and submitted to EU and UN for post-millennial development goals and activities for 2015 specifically focusing on prevention of gender-based violence as a guarantee for economic independence of women.

Participants will participate and contribute on the 2nd of March in The High-Level Event on Post-2015 and Beijing+20: Women’s Economic Empowerment and Sustainable Development – the Synthesis for Success that is organized by the European Commission and the Latvian Government at the National Library, Riga.

The underlying principle of NGO partnership is equality and engagement, because the discussion about sustainable global society also includes Central Asian countries and EU Member States where Northern, Southern, as well as Western and Eastern dimensions are represented. The partnership is based on the issue to be prioritized during the presidency of Latvia concerning cooperation in EU – in the context of Central Asian strategy. Latvia has historically developed good cooperation and a tradition of doing business with the countries of Central Asia. During the presidency Resource Center for Women MARTA will make use of its experience in cooperation with Central Asia to facilitate consolidation of dialogue between Europe and Central Asia.