This book is a summary report on the conference, “A Gender Agenda 2: Asia-Europe Dialogue—Transformational Approaches to the Roles of Women and Men in Economic Life and Political Decision-Making,” which took place in September 2002 in Tampere, Finland and was co-sponsored by the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), the Finnish Women’s Associations for Joint Action (NYTKIS), and the Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE).

This conference was organized as part of the A Gender Agenda: Asia-Europe Dialogue project, which was conceived to facilitate a dialogue on broad gender issues between two major regions of the world, Asia and Europe. The project aims to foster discussion on the issue of gender mainstreaming and to act as one forum for international exchange on gender issues at the civil society level. The Tampere conference was designed to continue the dialogue from the first Gender Agenda conference, co-hosted by ASEF and JCIE in Chiba, Japan in 2001, which focused on gender issues in the policymaking process and other common challenges in Asia and Europe related to gender balance in the new global era. The 2002 conference further explored these issues and produced recommendations for the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) partner nations, international organizations, and civil society actors based on the findings of two study groups on the roles of women and men as agents of change in political decision-making and the economy.

This report consists of an overview, a summary of discussion, and the two study groups’ papers.