On July 15, the Shanghai Women's Federation headquarters welcomed a group of special guests - a delegation of the "Global South Artificial Intelligence Development and Application" workshop composed of more than 40 experts and scholars from 15 countries and regions including Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In this friendly dialogue across three continents, the two sides conducted in-depth and fruitful exchanges on core issues such as women's development, gender equality, family building, and technological empowerment in the context of the new era, and jointly drew up a beautiful blueprint for future cooperation.
The delegation members came from diverse backgrounds, including well-known scholars, researchers and social activists from the Three Continents Institute for Social Research, the International Association for Popular Cooperation, universities and trade unions in many countries, reflecting the strong interest of the Global South in the development experience of Chinese women's cause.
At the symposium, Li Ming, vice chairman of the Shanghai Women's Federation, first expressed the warmest welcome to the guests from afar on behalf of the Shanghai Women's Federation. She pointed out that Shanghai, as a frontier window of China's reform and opening up, has always regarded protecting the rights and interests of women and children and promoting gender equality as one of the core issues of urban development. Through a series of detailed data, she vividly demonstrated the outstanding achievements made by Shanghai women in the fields of health, education, economy and social management. In particular, in terms of improving women's political participation, the proportion of female representatives at all levels of party congresses and people's congresses in Shanghai, as well as the proportion of female members of the CPPCC, has continued to grow steadily, demonstrating the increasingly important role of women in social governance.
Professor Lu Xinyu, Dean of the Institute of International Communication of East China Normal University and leader of the workshop, spoke on behalf of all members. She said that the delegation has great interest in China's great achievements in uniting and leading women, safeguarding women's rights, and promoting women's scientific and technological innovation and economic and social development, and believes that China's experience is of great reference significance to the vast number of countries in the Global South. She emphasized that in today's rapidly developing artificial intelligence technology, how to ensure that all social groups, including women, can benefit from it fairly is a common issue facing the world, and she looks forward to gaining profound inspiration through this exchange.
In the subsequent interactive session, the atmosphere was warm and friendly. Representatives from Ghana, Brazil, Morocco, Mexico and other countries asked questions enthusiastically, focusing on in-depth topics such as how China can empower rural working women, how to deal with some criticisms of Chinese women's development in Western society, how to protect women's rights through institutional design, and how to integrate the concept of gender equality into the national development strategy.
Faced with these practical issues, Huang Zhiying, deputy director of the Office of the Shanghai Women and Children's Work Committee, Lu Ronggen, director of the Rights Protection Department of the Shanghai Women's Federation, Zhang Yanhua, director of the Family and Children's Department, Jin Weiqing, deputy director of the Development Liaison Department, and Zhang Yi and Liu Xirong, cadres of the Development Liaison Department, gave candid and detailed answers. They introduced Shanghai's experience in promoting the comprehensive development of women's cause through systematic policy intervention, guidance of cultural concepts, and women's capacity building.
• At the institutional guarantee level, from the national to the local level, China has written the basic national policy of adhering to gender equality and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of women and children into laws and development outlines, and has ensured that related work is steadily promoted in a targeted and step-by-step manner by formulating five-year and ten-year plans.
• In terms of empowering women, the Shanghai Women's Federation has helped female college students find employment and start businesses by creating the "Seagull Plan", built a new space for family education through projects such as "Home + Bookstore", and held high-level activities such as the "AI Women's Elite Forum" to make outstanding women from all walks of life visible and inspired.
• At the level of social mobilization, the Shanghai Women's Federation relies on the four-level organizational network and a large group membership system including the "Female Doctors Association" and the "Female Lawyers Association", as well as volunteer projects such as "Loving Neighbor Moms", to widely gather social forces and provide accurate and warm services for women, children and families. The symposium ended successfully in a warm atmosphere of mutual exchange of special souvenirs. This is not only a successful experience sharing meeting, but also a collision of ideas and deepening of friendship. It clearly shows that despite the different national conditions of various countries, the voices of the Global South are converging on the road to pursuing gender equality and promoting the all-round development of women, and China's practice is also contributing unique wisdom and solutions to the world. Both sides look forward to more such high-level dialogue opportunities in the future, moving forward hand in hand, and jointly writing a new chapter in the global women's development cause.
