The 4th edition of Ethiopia’s popular women’s 5km run will be staged in Addis Ababa on Sunday 1st April 2007. This year's race date has been set for one week after the IAAF World XC Championships in Mombasa, Kenya to give athletes the chance to compete in two international races in East Africa on consecutive weekends.

WOMEN FIRST, the name of the competition, was originally started in May 2004 as a way of bringing together women to participate in a big running event and – through the race publicity – to move women’s issues higher up the agenda in Ethiopia.

Since 2005 the run has taken place around the time of International Women’s Day on 8 March.

Around 8,000 women took part in the run’s third edition on Sunday 5th March 2006. Over the past two years Ethiopia’s Olympic 5,000m gold medallist Meseret Defar has been an active supporter of the event and presented prizes to the winners at the 2006 race.

For details of how to register for the 2007 race go to registration women's 5k.