Timor-Leste and the Coral Triangle Center (CTC) were appointed as chair and co-chair, respectively, of the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries, and Food Security (CTI-CFF) Women Leaders’ Forum, during the 16th CTI-CFF Senior Officials Meeting held virtually on December 13-15, 2021. 

The CTI-CFF Women Leaders Forum (WLF) was established at the 10th CTI-CFF Senior Officials Meeting and 5th Ministerial Meeting in Manado, Indonesia in May 2014, where the CTI-CFF called upon Coral Triangle countries to actively engage and incorporate gender equality perspectives to achieve its goals and targets. It encouraged all its bodies and its six member countries to integrate women as major stakeholders in its activities, and to document these actions to provide testament to, and serve as a model for, gender integration in marine resource management.

Through the activities of the CTI-CFF Women Leaders Forum, it is envisioned that coastal and marine resources have been and will continue to be more effectively managed due to increased engagement and empowerment of women in decision-making processes at all levels in the Coral Triangle region and in the various CTI-CFF bodies.

As the co-chair of the CTI-CFF Women Leaders’ Forum, CTC will serve for two years and will assist the chair to demonstrate active commitment to promote the rights of women and girls, build their networks and capacity, and ensure recognition of their integral value within CTI’s conservation and sustainability goals and activities. Some of the activities of the CTI-CFF Women Leaders’ Forum in the coming year include the implementation of the CTI-CFF Gender Policy, and forging partnerships and collaborations to build capacity of women leaders in marine resource management, amongst others. 

CTC has been an active member of the CTI-CFF Women Leaders’ Forum since the beginning and has been instrumental in its establishment as a formal part of the CTI-CFF body. In collaboration with partners such as USAID and the US Department of the Interior, CTC has organized key activities for the WLF such as a peer-learning study tour in the US for senior women leaders; a small grant program for grassroots women leaders in marine conservation; an intensive inter-generational leadership program for women leaders in each Coral Triangle country, and the development of a competency-based learning module to advance women’s role in marine resource management in the Coral Triangle, amongst others. 

The CTI-CFF Women Leaders Forum involves a wide range of partners, and functions as a peer-learning network for women who are playing key leadership roles in sustaining the marine resources of the Coral Triangle region. It serves as a platform to accomplish simultaneous goals, including to:

• recognize the achievement of women leaders who are championing marine conservation in the six Coral Triangle countries; 
• build the capacity of women from the Coral Triangle to take leadership roles in preserving and sustaining the region’s unique marine and coastal resources; 
• collect and share tools as well as good practices that integrate gender principles in marine conservation and sustainability projects and weave them into existing CTI-CFF structures and activities outlined by the CTI-CFF Regional and National Plans of Action; and 
• integrate gender principles in CTI-CFF activities and through recommendations presented at annual CTI-CFF Senior Officials Meetings.

For more information about CTC’s women leaders’ forum activities, please visit this link: https://www.coraltrianglecenter.org/womens-leaders-forum/