The Regional Women Forum (RWF), a grouping of the 11 member states of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) will this week meet in Khartoum, Sudan to elect new organs (steering committee and its bureau) that will govern it for the next two years.The forum is one of the projects under the ICGLR Pact on Security, Stability and Development and is a specific follow- up mechanism on Gender issues.  During its second General Assembly to run up to Saturday, members will recieve a report of the outgoing Steering Committee, to assess the implementation of the gender dimension of the pact, an ICGLR statement reads in part.The forum is led by a Steering committee comprising 11 members, representatives of Member States and a bureau composed by Rwanda (Chair), Republic of Congo (First Vice President), Zambia (Second Vice President) Tanzania (First Secretary), and Burundi (Second Secretary). Experts have on several occasions argued that  the campaign against  sexual and gender based violence in the region is far from over until there is political will and commitment at national levels.Women’s rights "There is no Great Lakes region in peace without women in peace and this means that they should not be used as tools for those aspiring for power,” the ICGLR Executive Secretary Prof. Lumu Alphonse Ntumba Luaba told a meeting in Kampala recently. RWF aims to strengthen women’s rights in the region by promoting their active participation at all levels and to ensure that the principles of women’s empowerment and gender equality take root among member states.