Phylicia Alexander Lavia is the Foundress & Executive Director of Red Root SVG, a nonprofit in her home country of Saint Vincent & the Grenadines. Phylicia is a gender-based violence survivor and activist who advocates for the empowerment & support of underserved women, LGBTQ+ communities & children.

Bridgetown, Barbados - While Dominica, Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago are among the countries in the Caribbean and Americas region where women ministers are nearing or exceeding the gender parity position of 30 per cent of representatives, the number of women in executive government and in parliament worldwide has stagnated.

UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and Deputy Executive Director Yannick Glemarec will join other world leaders at the first World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) held today and tomorrow in Istanbul, Turkey. The first gathering of its kind, the Summit aims to place humanity—people’s safety, dignity and the right to thrive—at the heart of global decision-making and initiate a set of concrete actions and commitments to enable countries and communities to better prepare for and respond to crises. With more than 5,000 expected participants, the programme will include seven high-level leaders' roundtables on priority action areas.

Under a joint UN programme, UN Women, UNICEF and the OECS Commission are supporting national budget directors and finance officers from the Eastern Caribbean in conducting the gender analysis to design and cost measures, the outcome of which are budgets that are child and gender responsive.

The call is being made for a more comprehensive approach to social safety nets in the region to ensure that they meets the needs of those in most need and position these beneficiaries to move towards self-reliance and out of poverty.