From 20-22 October 2010, UNFPA held a regional meeting in Istanbul entitled "From Cairo to Beijing and Beyond: the unfinished agenda on gender equality in Eastern Europe and Central Asia." The meeting's objective was to review progress and challenges in the area of gender equality, equity and the empowerment of women as covered by the ICPD Programme of Action. 34 experts attended the meeting from government agencies, parliaments, NGOs and academic institutions, from a total of 20 countries.

EPF President, Hon. Tsereteli, MP (Georgia) and EPF Executive Committee Member, Hon. Oznur Calik, MP (Turkey) attended the meeting and as lawmakers contributed to the discussion on better policies in this area. In her opening remarks, Hon. Calik, MP stressed that more efforts should be made in order to promote women's active involvement in politics and socio-economic life. She emphasized that ensuring access to education for all girls and strengthening them as individuals will lead to women's more active citizenship and stronger identity. Hon. Tsereteli, MP (Georgia) and EPF President chaired the Working Group "Investment in Youth": Transformation of gender roles", where participants elaborated recommendations for future work in this area. He underlined the important results achieved by the 3-year EC/UNFPA Reproductive Health Initiative for Youth in South Caucasus", where a number of awareness raising events took place across the country, such as campaigns, informative TV spots and youth festivals. Approximately 80 youth-friendly reproductive health centres have opened across the countries of South Caucasus that offer modern information and services on RH for young people. Mr. Tsereteli spoke for scaling up such projects and noted the importance of Parliamentary involvement in regional networks that facilitate the exchange of best parliamentary practices on this field.

Participants concluded with the adoption of Recommendations, highlighting the need for increasing the accountability and the capacity of the State to meet its obligations under human rights conventions and the ICPD agenda. One of the key factors would be to ensure the collection of gender disaggregated data.

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