Ahead of the 2026 Commonwealth Women’s Forum (CWF) scheduled for November, an Antigua and Barbuda-headquartered nonprofit has issued a widespread call for women’s groups, rights advocates, and civil society organizations (CSOs) across the 56-nation Commonwealth bloc to join a groundbreaking three-part virtual pre-convening series. Integrated Health Outreach (IHO), the organizer of the initiative, has already opened online registration for the multi-session event, which aims to align grassroots civil society priorities ahead of the official high-level gathering.
The CWF holds a formal place as an official stakeholder event held in parallel with the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). For the 2026 iteration, both CHOGM and the CWF will be hosted in Antigua and Barbuda, marking a key moment for small island developing states to lead global conversations on gender equity. IHO’s virtual series, spread across four dates in October 2026, is designed to bring together a broad cross-section of groups: women’s rights organizations, youth-led networks, local community associations, and indigenous peoples’ representative bodies. Over the course of the sessions, participants will collectively develop targeted policy recommendations addressing the most pressing barriers to gender equity across the Commonwealth, including gender-based violence against women and girls, systemic barriers to women’s economic empowerment, and underrepresentation of women in senior leadership roles.
Across the three-part program, IHO will facilitate a structured process for participants to draft, refine, and formally approve a unified joint civil society statement. This document will be presented directly to high-level policymakers at the 2026 CWF, where it will shape discussions that eventually feed into agenda setting and commitments at the 2026 CHOGM. All sessions will be hosted via Zoom to enable global participation, and organizers have urged interested delegates to commit to attending all three parts of the series to ensure a collaborative, consistent process.
The first session, held October 9, 2026 from 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM Atlantic Standard Time (AST), will center on framing the CWF’s core mandate for advancing women’s rights and mapping out strategic pathways for civil society to contribute meaningfully to high-level discussions. To accommodate participants across multiple time zones globally, the second working session is offered at two separate time slots: Session 2A will run October 13 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM AST (10:00 PM to 12:00 AM GMT), while Session 2B will be held October 14 from 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM AST (11:00 AM to 1:00 PM GMT). This second session will be dedicated to interactive collaborative work, where participants will co-develop specific policy recommendations to include in the joint civil society statement. The final session, scheduled for October 23 from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM AST, will include a full review of the drafted statement, formal adoption of the final document, and a closing briefing on all procedural and operational details ahead of the November CWF.
Across the Commonwealth, advancing gender equity and women’s rights is widely recognized as more than a standalone social objective: it is a core foundation for sustainable development and strong democratic governance. With women and girls accounting for more than half of the bloc’s 2.7 billion total population, systemic challenges such as gender-based violence, economic exclusion, and structural gender inequality demand coordinated, intentional collaboration between governmental actors and grassroots civil society. This virtual pre-convening series fills a critical gap by creating a structured space to ensure that commitments emerging from the 2026 CWF are rooted in on-the-ground needs, making them practical, relevant, and achievable.
Meaningful civil society participation is essential to ensuring that high-level global policy agendas reflect the lived realities of marginalized communities across the Commonwealth. Local advocates and CSOs bring direct frontline experience and context-specific expertise that bridges the often-wide gap between top-down policy design and tangible community impact. By centering these diverse grassroots voices in the drafting process, IHO is working to ensure the final statement presented to CWF policymakers is both fully inclusive of diverse experiences and authoritative as a reflection of collective civil society priorities. Empowering civil society to shape the agenda from the early stages guarantees that any resulting policy frameworks will be democratically legitimate, responsive to community needs, and positioned to drive transformative, long-term change for women across the bloc.
Integrated Health Outreach is a nonprofit organization focused on advancing gender justice, climate justice, and health equity globally. Its core mission centers on empowering vulnerable populations, upholding human rights, and ensuring that grassroots civil society voices are integrated into national and international policy making processes. The organization has an established track record of coordinating civil society participation in major global forums, including leading civil society coordination efforts for the Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS4) held in Antigua, participating in the 30th UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Brazil, and contributing to the 55th General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), also hosted in Antigua. IHO’s work on the 2026 CWF pre-convening series is supported by funding from the Equality Fund and Global Affairs Canada.