ACTION PLAN FROM TRIENNIAL WONCA MEETING WWPWFM 24-26 JULY 2007, SINGAPORE

(UPDATED version 3, 26 Aug 2007)

 
1. Promote implementation of Gender Equity Bylaw Amendments.

2. Ensure that Wonca 2010 (Cancun) and other Wonca regional and rural meetings have gender equitable programmes.

 3. Develop a Code of Conduct for Wonca Meetings to promote equity for women and related ethical issues.

4. Support Wonca activities in ensuring FM is a speciality throughout the world.

 5. Promote development of young/new family physicians with particular attention to overcoming their challenges and barriers to full development.

 6. Work with the WWPRFM (Rural) to amend the Wonca guidebook to reflect a gender equity perspective.

7. Use Wonca as a forum to highlight areas where professional leaders could be influential in legislating and regulating conditions which support equity and wellbeing for female practitioners.

 8. Explore, promote and translate the 10 Steps to Gender Equity and Health into the core publications and mission statement of Wonca.

 9. Work within Wonca to ensure that the ICPC codes can deliver accurate information about the issues highlighted in the care of women patients.

11. Ensure that our website, listserve, meetings and all communications are effective and inclusive, serving the purpose for which the WWP has been set up, and progressing this vision by celebrating the work we are doing.

12. Provide mentorship to others within the group as requested, specifically the younger participants whose careers are still being developed.

13. Commit the Working Party to continue to address issues of linguistic diversity – for example, by endeavour to ensure that the core material we prepare for each regional meeting (flyers, HER statement…) is available in the language of the host organisation as well as the preferred language.

14. Create a prize for recognition of the work done by a family physician who has embodied the issues of gender and equity for women in their clinical and academic practice, and getting this awarded by Wonca as a high profile event.

15. Convene a WWPWFM meeting in 2009 to ensure that the activities of the WWPWFM continue - to review the vision, objectives, action plan, and to plan for the preconference and ‘women’s track’ in Cancun 2010.

16. Continue to secure and distribute bursaries for travel to maximum effect, using the budget in an equitable fashion.

The WWPWFM Action Plan outlines short-term and long-term goals developed at the pre-conference. Wonca is an international organization made up of member organizations from various regions around the world.  The policy of Wonca is set by a governing board, which meets every three years.  Decisions adopted by the Wonca governing council have a large symbolic and potentially practical influence on family medicine and general practice in all parts of the world.  Up until the present, women’s concerns within family medicine have not been a major focus for Wonca.  With the official formation and recognition of the of the Wonca Working Party on Women and Family Medicine at the 16^th International Conference of Wonca in Durban in 2001 came the potential for the Working Party to influence Wonca’s language, policy, and program.

This Action Plan 2007 – 2010 arose out of the WWPWFM pre-conference meeting in Singapore on the 23^rd July 2007. At that meeting, participants reviewed the 2004-2007 Report Card and accomplishments (especially The HER Statement and the 10 Steps to Gender Equity and Health, with the aim of developing a focused Action Plan for the next triennium. This new 2007 – 2010 Action Plan built on the previous one, but time did not permit a full review of all the previous proposed activities. Generally the vision, principles and objectives from the 2004 Orlando meeting were adopted, however, the importance of the principles of the HER Statement and 10 Steps to Gender Equity and Health were underlined. Some actions from the 2004 – 2007 Action Plan have been omitted but will be reviewed again when time permits. The history of the current Action Plan is outlined in detail in the Appendix which follows the main plan.