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Dinner Honors U.S. Ambassador Shirin R. Tahir-Kheli and UNESCO's Women Ambassadors
May, 2008
U.S. Seccretary of State Rice and U.S. Special Envoy to the OIC Sada Cumber
UNESCO's Women Ambassadors join Ambassador Louise V. Oliver to honor Ambassador Shirin Tahir-Kheli (second from right). Photo: U.S. Mission J. Sehedic


Ambassador Tahir-Kheli was appointed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to serve as her Senior Adviser for women's empowerment. In this capacity, she focuses especially on multifaceted outreach to the women of the Muslim world. The empowerment of women is vital to President Bush's agenda for promoting democracy and freedom. Strengthening the role of women and providing opportunities for them are important elements in economic development as well as social and political progress.

The United States is deeply committed to addressing issues that are important to American women and women throughout the world. Promoting women's political and economic participation is an important element of U.S. foreign policy and a key component of transformational diplomacy. Global respect for women is a Bush Administration foreign policy priority. The United States is in the forefront of advancing women's causes around the world, helping them become full participants in their societies through various initiatives and programs that help increase women's political participation and economic opportunities and support women and girls' access to education and health care.

At UNESCO, the U.S. works to advance women in many ways, including through access to education. Mrs. Laura Bush, First Lady of the United States, is the Honorary Ambassador for the UN Literacy Decade and has partnered with UNESCO to raise awareness about the importance of literacy, especially for women and girls.

The Office of the Senior Coordinator for International Women's Issues serves as the Department's coordinating body for all foreign policy issues related to the political, economic, and social advancement of women in democracy worldwide. Recognizing that the full and equal participation of women in the political, economic, and social spheres of society is a key ingredient for democratic development, the mandate of this Office is to mobilize concrete support for greater women's empowerment, promote greater awareness of gender-based violence and discrimination, and to ensure that women's human rights are considered along with, not segregated from, other human rights in the development of U.S. foreign policy.



Links of interest

Ambassador Shirin R. Tahir-Kheli Biography

Office of International Women's Issues, U.S. Department of State

White House Conference on Global Literacy

UNESCO Literacy Portal

Office of the Senior Adviser to the Secretary of State for Women's Empowerment

 
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