About International Women's Issues

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.

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.