UN to hold summit of women leaders at Rio+20

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) will hold a summit of top women leaders from around the globe during the UN Rio Conference on Sustainable Development in June.The “Summit for the Future Women Want” will take place on June 21, the second day of the so-called Rio+20 conference to be held in Rio de Janeiro, and will gather a number of female presidents and prime ministers who will call for concrete action toward the full integration of women in sustainable development.Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff, the first woman to ever lead the South American giant, will attend the summit, as will Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, and Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.Also taking part will be Kamla Persad-Bissessar, prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, and Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the Danish prime minister.The UN Women is headed by Michelle Bachelet, who served as president of Chile from 2006 to 2010.The summit will be preceded by a three-day forum, at which participants will discuss and reaffirm the concepts of gender equality and the empowerment of women within the framework of sustainable development, according to the United Nations.