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Country Indexes
outcome XM-DAC-41146-APA_D_2.1
Gender-responsive policy and legislative frameworks are developed and implemented to promote safe migration, decent work and sustainable development for all women workers, including migrant workers
In the context of ongoing global pandemic of COVID-19, this tends to have long-lasting effects on women migrant workers, especially related to increasing financial hardship and inability to provide essentials for their families whose lives depends on their remittances, and secure overseas employment due to tighter restrictions on migrants. In 2021 UN Women through its regional role, continued providing technical guidance to stakeholders, particularly in South and Southeast Asian sub-regions to implement their commitments to the international cooperation on migration. UN Women actively supported the organization of the 14th ASEAN Forum on Migrant Labour (AFML) with the efforts to ensure women migrant-specific needs and concerns were highlighted in the forum discussion and integrated in the Forum’s recommendations, which were adopted by ASEAN member states, CSOs and employment associations and trade unions. Further, UN Women in partnership with ILO and IOM actively assisted the organization of the meetings of the Colombo Process’s Thematic Area Working Groups (TAWGs) in reviewing their objectives in taking actions to promote safe migration, decent work and sustainable development for all migrant workers, especially women. Particularly, UN Women influenced the engagement of more diverse non-state actors, especially civil society organizations (CSOs) and trade unions. With increased participation of non-state actors, the dynamic of the TAWG meetings have changed. CSO and trade union actors were given more space to voice out specific concerns of women migrant workers in labour migration process, especially in the areas concerning on skills and qualification recognition; ethical recruitment; reintegration; and remittances to government representatives and other stakeholders and share lessons learned from their hands-on providing gender-responsive interventions. This increased awareness among the Member States of the TAWGs and enhanced more meaningful engagement between them and non-state actors at regional and national levels. As a member of the Executive Committee of the Regional United Nations Network on Migration for Asia and the Pacific, UN Women continued providing technical inputs and advices in planning and organizing the activities of the Network, including the Regional Review of Global Compact on Migration on 10-12 March 2021 and regional consultation meetings with stakeholders during July to September this year. As a result of UN Women’s advocacy effort, gender equality and women’s empowerment in migration policies and practices were highlighted to government and other stakeholders. Particularly, UN Women emphasized on the engagement of non-state stakeholders, especially CSOs, trade unions, local authorities, the private sector, and media in the consultation process organized by the Network. These have increased awareness and promoted the collaborations among stakeholders in line with the GCM’s Whole of Society approach leading to safe migration and sustainable development for women and men migrant workers.
outcome XM-DAC-41146-APA_D_2.2
More women lead, participate and have access to business opportunities to advance sustainable and inclusive growth (Outcome 7)
The Programme developed the first-ever reporting framework aligned to the WEPs, the WEPs Transparency and Accountability Framework, which includes a set of indicators of gender equality across corporate value chains, fully aligned with existing corporate gender quality frameworks. Businesses can use the framework for transparent reporting, with support from governments and other stakeholders, and more effectively work towards a gender equal economy that works for all women and men. To deepen understanding of public and private mechanisms for gender equality aligned to the WEPs, WEA and ILO developed the WEPs ASEAN Ecosystem Landscaping report, which provides policymakers, companies, civil society, employer organizations and other stakeholders in the ASEAN region with comprehensive details on policy gaps and sets out a clear policy roadmap for ASEAN member states to advance more gender-responsive business conduct and especially clear guidance on reporting and implementing Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs)-related policies. Increased commitments and actions from the private sector to drive more responsible business conduct, have been leveraged during the reporting period. The APAC region has been the world's fastest growing region with WEPs signatories [Baseline 2019 (192) and 2021 (1665) signatories]. Additionally, WEA boosted the uptake of the number of companies who have undertaken a gender-assessment through the GAT tool, with an increase of 269 companies across WEA countries and 432 companies in the Asia Pacific region, compared to the previous reporting year. Building on the successful implementation of the 2020 Asia-Pacific WEPs Awards, WEA organized the 2021 WEPs Awards and received nearly doubled the number of applications – from 250 companies with 400 applications in 2020 to 480 companies and 700 applications in 2021. Further, WEA intensified its outreach and capacity-building activities to strengthen private sector commitments. Despite the impacts of the pandemic the WEA programme has especially contributed to get more businesses engaged to commit and implement gender-responsive practices. A key shift in programme activities spurred by COVID-19 was a new workstream to address women’s underpaid and unpaid care work, a long-standing issue that has been exacerbated by the pandemic. One of the most notable achievements of WEA to address this burden in an innovative way has been the work on Care Entrepreneurship in the context of achieving inclusive recovery, where WEA has demonstrated concrete results during the reporting period, notably the implementation of the first ever Care Accelerator. The programme has worked with 13 selected ‘Care Enterprises’ and has increased their capacities to strengthen their business models to become more resilient and inclusive and helped them to be connected to investors, mentors and other entrepreneurs. Further, WEA continued to play an important role in strengthening entrepreneurship capacities among women-owned businesses and women entrepreneurs, with a particular focus on the ‘missing middle’, to contribute to an inclusive recovery and transform businesses to become more gender-responsive, leading to more women having access to decent employment opportunities. For example, the Industry Disruptor is a WEA-led initiative that connects WOBs with larger corporates in the Indian Textile & Fashion industry and E-Commerce Sector to co-develop innovative solutions to address sustainability challenges in the industry while connecting more women with procurement schemes of larger corporates. Building on the success of the first edition, during the reporting year, WEA initiated the second phase of the Industry Disruptor 2.0 in collaboration with The DO School. WEA has also developed a range of capacity-building tools/programmes for entrepreneurs and ecosystem players i.e. the ‘WeRise Programme’ aiming to create more viable and more inclusive business models for SMEs, inclusive of scalable and replicable Accelerator and Entrepreneurship Toolkits, which have been piloted in Thailand and Indonesia. The toolkits aim to (1) increase the ability of women entrepreneurs to assess and access the right sources of finance while becoming inclusive business and WEPs Champions; and (2) increase the ability of acceleration programmes to become more gender inclusive and increase investments in women-led/ benefitting business [Accelerator Toolkits] [Entrepreneurship Toolkits].
outcome XM-DAC-41146-APA_D_2.3
Needs of women are better addressed by climate change and disaster risk reduction actions for ensuring alternative climate-resilient livelihoods
The climate change continues to affect Asia and the Pacific. The trends in 2021 remain the same in terms of patterns of impacts on vulnerable. Though these impacts were further exacerbated by growing equalities and spread of COVID. Extreme weather and climate-related events accounted for 83 per cent of all disasters in Asia and the Pacific over the past decade [1] ; a pattern that is expected to continue into the future, with the number of climate disasters expected to maintain an upwards trend. [2] An alarming forecast, considering that in 2019 more than 75 million people were affected by disasters in Asia and the Pacific. [3] UN Women continued to work on creating enabling environment for gender mainstreaming in climate policies in the region by promoting normative changes, awareness raising and building capacities of stakeholders. One important result is finalisation of the assessment of the climate change commitments made by all countries in the region under the Paris Agreement and review of gender integration in policy, legal, institutional and monitoring frameworks as well as financing. Another result is about change in the lives of 2411 women-entrepreneurs to received support from the project for building climate resilience through the use of renewable energy sources. It is essential to understand that climate change and environmental hazards are not purely natural phenomena with physical causes and effects, but rather environments are made hazardous by social vulnerability and societal inequalities produced by underlying political and economic systems, including the politics of relations between people at different levels. Women often face heightened levels of vulnerability due to their position within both society and at the household level. Gender norms result in social, economic, and political barriers that limit women’s ability to cope with and recover from the damage suffered as a result of sudden and slow-onset climate disasters. Certain groups of women are more vulnerable than others, namely female-headed households, indigenous women, older women and those with lower-levels of education and low socio-economic status; their lower societal positions limiting their access to resources and their ability to diversify their livelihoods in response to climate change. It is women’s diverse reproductive and productive roles in the household and at the community level across all sectors, including in areas such as agriculture, energy provision, water and waste management, that are adversely impacted by climate change. The global assessment report prepared by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in August 2021 has identified Asia and the Pacific as a region particularly vulnerable to the physical impacts of climate change. Among certain expected impacts, scientists list "exacerbated poverty, inequalities and new vulnerabilities” and “increased risk of drought-related water and food shortages causing malnutrition”. In addition, the region should expect to face “increased riverine, coastal and urban flooding leading to damage to infrastructure, livelihoods and settlements in Asia”; “increased risk of flood-related deaths, injuries, infectious diseases and mental disorders”; “increased risk of heat related mortality” and “increased risk of crop failure and lower crop production”. [4] In Asia “heat extremes have increased”, whilst “sea levels will very likely continue to rise around Small Islands, more so with higher emissions and over longer time periods”. [5] [1] IFRC, 2020. World Disasters Report 2020: Come Heat or High Water – Tackling the Humanitarian Impacts of the Climate Crisis Together. p.2. [2] UNESCAP, 2019. Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2019: The Disaster Riskscape Across Asia-Pacific, Pathways for Resilience, Inclusion and Empowerment. p.9. [3] IFRC, 2020. p.91. [4] Hijoka et al, 2014. Asia. In: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part B: Regional Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . p.1336-1337. [5] </
outcome XM-DAC-41146-APA_D_3.1
An enabling legislative and policy environment in line with international standards on EVAW and other forms of discrimination is in place and translated into action
New National Action Plans (NAP) in Lao PDR and Malaysia The APA Outcome 3.1 made significant progress during the reporting period. Two new NAPs, one on violence against women and children and another one on trafficking in persons (TIP) were adopted in Lao PDR and Malaysia, respectively. In Malaysia, UN Women ROAP, through the Safe and Fair Programme (SAF), contributed to the new National Action Plan on Anti-Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) 2021-2025 in collaboration with UNODC. The NAPTIP was launched in March 2021, by the Ministry of Home Affairs. The new NAPTIP provides the policy and implementation directions for Malaysia’s anti-trafficking efforts in the next five years. The NAPTIP 3.0 was developed through a collaborative process among the Malaysian Council for Anti-Trafficking in Persons, SAF UN agencies and CSOs. The inputs from UN Women mainly focused on enhancing the prevention of TIP by addressing risk factors, protection through legal remedies and provision of services to survivors, including increased prosecution of TIP. In Lao PDR, UN Women, through SAF, provided technical support to the Second National Plan of Action on Preventing and Elimination of Violence against Women and Violence against Children (2021-2025) (NPAVAWVAC). The technical support from UN Women, through SAF, focused on ensuring the integration of the gender-sensitive and survivor-centered approaches in the NPAVWAVAC. The technical supports of UNW were consolidated into the Guidance Note to Develop Migrant-Sensitive National Action Plans on Violence against Women which builds lessons learned from the NAPVAW Cambodia (adopted in 2020) and the NPAVWAVAC Lao PDR. Building capacities of service providers on coordinated responses to VAW including women migrant workers through a practical guide on how to develop Standard Operating Procedures. The APA Outcome 3.1 made significant progress during the reporting period. A practical guide, “Developing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for a Coordinated Response to Violence against Women, including women migrant workers” was developed and introduced to service providers in the ASEAN region, through a webinar organized in December 2021. UN Women developed the SOPs guide through in-depth cooperation and consultation with partners across the countries in ASEAN where developing national and local SOPs, as part of the Safe and Fair programme. This guidance for SOPs is designed for service providers, based on service providers’ experiences and lessons learnt and is not meant to be static. It must be regularly updated to ensure the referral pathways are functioning and relevant to the current context and situation of women subject to violence, including women migrant workers. This includes during times of crisis or during pandemics such as COVID-19. In these times the SOPs must be reviewed to ensure services are operational and function regularly. Ending Violence against Women and Children (EVAWC) in East Asia and Pacific While the outcome has not yet been achieved, progress was made in 2021, which led to a joint programme with UNICEF and UNFPA in Viet Nam (VNM) (“Supporting Interventions to Eliminate Violence against Women and Children in VNM under COVID-19 Emergency Context”, jointly implemented June 2020 - May 2021). Building on four country studies, in 2021 the EVAW team, together with the other agencies, played a key role in shaping a regional report and a joint letter by the Regional Directors from the three agencies urging staff in country offices to collaborate more closely across agencies. In November 2021, the three agencies organized a session on VAW and Violence against Children (VAC) During UNICEF’s INSPIRE conference. The joint emergency programme was the first time that the three UN agencies worked together to design and implement a project on VAW-VAC in an emergency situation in VNM, and resulted in the development and approval of a new joint programme on EVAWC in the period of 2021-2025 in VNM. Based on the progress made, ROAP’s strategy and theory of change for this outcome is still applicable and has not been amended. In VNM, the Theory of Change of the programme in the strategic note 2022-2026 was informed by the TOC of the joint programme. The regional EVAW team, UNFPA and UNICEF have started discussing further joint work in 2022. The impact of this work is significant as it has historically been difficult to work on the intersections of VAWVAC.
outcome XM-DAC-41146-APA_D_3.2
Favorable social norms, attitudes and behaviors are promoted at national, community and individual levels to prevent VAW
The outcome was not achieved during the course of 2021, but progress was made. On 16 June 2021, the UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in collaboration with Breakthrough organized a Regional Dialogue on Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in the context of the Generation Equality Forum (GEF), featuring speakers from government, donors, activists, civil society and youth across the region. GEF also has a strong regional footprint – through the Regional Journey. By strengthening and deepening the mobilization of broad, diverse, civil society and stakeholders in countries and regions to inform the Forum, the Regional Journey helped the GEF effort toward fostering an inclusive, vibrant, and strengthened movement for gender equality that is responsive to building back better and differently from the COVID-19 crisis. Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is the focus of one of six Generation Equality Action Coalitions that are mobilizing governments, women’s, feminist and youth-led organizations, international organizations, and the private sector. The Regional Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue on the Action Coalition on Gender-Based Violence brought together change makers from across the Asia Pacific region to accelerate action on gender equality, inspire action and bold commitments from all stakeholders and discuss the priority Action Areas. The Regional Dialogue featured a diversity of speakers and activists. It kicked off with the powerful poem ‘Fortified Fortress’ by a young Thai artist, which spoke to the experiences of abuse, harassment and violence that many survivors of violence against women share. The event featured speakers from different sections at UN Women who spoke about the Transformative Agenda of the Action Coalition on Gender-Based Violence, and the Commitment Makers Model. The four Actions of the GBV Action Coalition were unpacked, featuring a diverse range of speakers from different stakeholders. Action 1 focused on laws, policies and financing of efforts to eliminate gender-based violence, featuring speakers from Breakthrough about the importance of investing in and prioritizing services for survivors of gender-based violence even in challenging times and the EU Ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand, who highlighted during his speech the remarkable outcomes of the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative. Remarks were also made by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Kingdom of Cambodia about the Cambodian National Action Plan to Prevent Violence against Women. Action 2 highlighted pioneering frameworks and approaches, and focused on the prevention of violence against women and girls in the region, featuring an introduction to the UN RESPECT framework and remarks from Our Watch in Australia about game-changing approaches that have been undertaken in Australia. Action 3 of the Regional GBV Dialogue highlighted responses to violence and services for survivors after violence has already occurred, featuring speakers from the World Health organization and Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Viet Nam. The final part of the session focused on girl-led and women’s rights organizations, featuring feminist activists and youth speakers. As the key organizer of this 2.5 hour session, UN Women’s contributions were key to organizing and shaping the event. The EVAW unit liaised with colleagues at HQ leading efforts on the GEF, consulted with Breakthrough about the design of the event, and reached out to and prepared a wide range of diverse speakers to ensure a diversity of perspective represented and a magnitude of topics covered throughout the dialogue in an accessible and action-oriented way. The EVAW unit further played a significant role in promoting the Dialogue through its networks to ensure a wide participation from across the region. Efforts to promote and shape the event were further supported by Breakthrough as the co-organizing entity. Based on the progress made to date, the original strategy and theory of change for this outcome is largely applicable and ROAP has not amended its strategy and ToC. The impact of the event includes bringing together a wide range of stakeholders from government, civil society, activists, academia and UN agencies to discuss next steps and identify entry points to advance EVAW efforts across the region. The attention on the issues received through this Regional Dialgoue are informing the EVAW teams and conversations and engagement with donors, governments and other stakeholders going forward.Showing 1 - 5 of 17