Beijing Women's Federation

Site of the 11th World Family Summit, conference representatives are taking photos
with Dr. Kusztra, President of the World Family Summit

The 11^th World Family Summit on the theme of “Families in Balance: Building the Future We Want” was opened in Zhuhai City of China’s Guangdong Province on December 2, 2014. Present at the summit were Gu Xiulian, the Director of China National Committee on Care for Children, Dr. Deisi Kusztra, the President of the World Family Summit, Babatunde, the Under-Secretary-General of the UN, and above 400 representatives from government agencies, NGOs, the UN agencies and international organizations related to family development in more than 50 countries (including regions), such as the National Health and Family Planning Commission of the P.R.C. and Executive Board of the United Nations Population Fund. Being invited, Beijing Woman’s Federation was also present at the summit.

Liu Yandong, the Vice Premier of the State Council of the P.R.C., delivered a written speech at the opening ceremony on the morning of December 2. She pointed out that families are the smallest and most lasting units of human society, the ties between individuals and societies, countries and the whole world, and the core of social civilization. She called for the incorporation of family development into the new international development agenda, to allow healthy development of families against social transformation and environmental changes. The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also sent a message to the summit.

During the 3-day summit, through Ministerial Roundtable, Local Authorities Roundtable, NGO Roundtable and Plenary Sessions, participants communicated and discussed on such topics as the relation between family development and social services, the relation between family development and NGOs and the difficulties and challenges in family development, jointly summarized the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals made by all the countries in the world in the past 10 years, studied and proposed countermeasures and suggestions for the Post-2015 Global Sustainable Development Agenda, and discussed and established the Zhuhai Declaration. As a representative for women’s social organizations, Beijing Women’s Federation also shared ideas with representatives from the World Family Organization and the UN and introduced its basic conditions, with a focus on its main practices in terms of families.

Totally 11 editions of World Family Summit have been hosted successfully by the World Family Organization all around the world, the first of which was in Shanya of China in 2004. It is an important global platform for discussions in relation to family development, on such topics as world peace, security, justice, tolerance, unity and prosperity.